Australia's Science Forum

Hi there!

One of my teachers asked if there's any safety concerns regarding gypsum. We have some fibrous gypsum in our kits.

I did a quick search on here and only found information on talc and asbestos and the removal of old kits containing them.

On a side note and not wanting to create a new topic thread, do you have any recommended suppliers for minerals, either individual or sets? We were looking to get some nicer samples for our seniors as the juniors seemed to have destroyed some of our current samples.

Thank you!

Haven't heard anything about gypsum. The recommendation for talc was it was often mined in areas close to asbestos, so there was a slight chance it could be contaminated.
We bought some awesome kits from Haines - the TESEP Australian Rock Kits. Weren't cheap $285 ex GST for the set but they are lovely big samples.
Our last lot of rock and mineral kits came from Southern Biological, but not sure how long ago (I've only been here two years)

Thank you for the info Merilyn!