{"id":25060,"date":"2010-07-16T08:11:08","date_gmt":"2010-07-16T08:11:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/geology-fail-california-moves-to-disown-state-rock-discoblog\/"},"modified":"2010-07-16T08:11:08","modified_gmt":"2010-07-16T08:11:08","slug":"geology-fail-california-moves-to-disown-state-rock-discoblog","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/astronomy\/geology-fail-california-moves-to-disown-state-rock-discoblog.php","title":{"rendered":"Geology Fail: California Moves to Disown State Rock | Discoblog"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"serpentine\"<\/a>It’s an honor doled out by about half of the American states: the naming of an official state rock. West Virginia has bituminous coal. Florida has agatized coral. California has the olive-green beauty serpentine–for the moment. State legislators are moving<\/a> to cast off the rock, saying it contains the mineral chrysotile asbestos.<\/p>

Exposure to chrysotile asbestos, according to the pending “serpentine bill,” increases the risk of cancer, and State Senator Gloria Romero wants nothing to do with the once-loved rock. She sponsored the bill, which has received support from the Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization<\/a> and the Consumer Attorneys of California<\/a>.<\/p>

<\/span>But geologists think the rock bill is dense, Malcolm Ross a retired geologist from the United States Geological Survey told <\/a>The New York Times<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>

“There is no way anyone is going to get bothered by casual exposure to that kind of rock…. Unless they were breaking it up with a sledgehammer year after year.”<\/p><\/blockquote>

Geologists like Ross have hope to save serpentine’s special status, given concern that the bill–as a perfect excuse for litigious jewelery owners and park visitors–could make many Californians’ lives rocky.<\/p>

The bill recently passed the State Senate, so serpentine’s fate is now up to a vote in the Assembly.<\/p>

Meanwhile, in “granite state” New Hampshire, the granite cliff formation “Old Man on the Mountain<\/a>” continues to appear on state license plates, though the rocky visage collapsed in 2003.<\/p>

Follow DISCOVER on Twitter. <\/em><\/a><\/p>

Related content:
Discoblog: It’s a Hoax! Famed “Moon Rock” Turns Out to Be Hunk of Wood<\/a>
Discoblog: NASA Geologist Is Sent Thousands of Rocks from Around the World <\/a>
Discoblog: The Latest (and Hardest) Tool for Battling Climate Change: Rocks<\/a><\/p>

Image: flickr \/ AlishaV<\/a><\/em><\/p>

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It’s an honor doled out by about half of the American states: the naming of an official state rock. West Virginia has bituminous coal. Florida has agatized coral. California has the olive-green beauty serpentine–for the moment. State legislators are moving … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"limit_modified_date":"","last_modified_date":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25060","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-astronomy"],"modified_by":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25060"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25060"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25060\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25060"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25060"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25060"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}