This fact sheet provides general information about elemental chromium, including types of chromium, uses, and the effects of short-term and long-term exposure. Full description.

This professional organization works to promote the chromium industry, from mining and production to industry and health. The site provides abundant information about the properties, sources and uses for chromium. Graphs and text explain the global distribution of chromite ore and its primary industrials uses including stainless steel and metallurgy, cement, leather tanning, timber and paint. The ... Full description.

This report explains how many chemicals used in pesticides, cosmetics, drugs, food, and commerce have not been sufficiently tested to allow a complete determination of their potential hazards. The report uses a model to show how research priorities for toxicity testing can be set. It may be read online, printed, or ordered in hard copy from the site. Full description.

This tutorial uses pictures, graphs, and text to explain what trace elements are, where they come from, and how they affect human health. The lesson focuses on iodine, flourine, and selenium, but also provides information about several other common trace elements such as calcium, magnesium, potassium, sodium, iron, zinc, and more. Students follow the tutorial frame by frame and can take a quiz at ... Full description.

This site provides a comprehensive source of information about thorium. Topics include occurrence, chemical properties, current applications and economics, radiation, government regulations, and control and remediation practices. The site also features links to additional resources with more detailed information about each topic. Full description.

This USGS site provides access to data sets collected by the National Water-Quality Assessment Program. It features fact sheets, reports, bibliographies, additional data sets and links to other resources about nutrients in streams, rivers and aquifers of the United States. The site briefly explains what nutrients are, how they are used in the agricultural industry, how they react chemically in the ... Full description.

This resource is a journal article about the impacts of minerals on human health. The article presents three recent examples of medical geology studies that illustrate the impacts of minerals and trace elements on human health. Topics covered include exposure to asbestos and soil fungus, hydroxylapatite (the mineral in bones), and exposure to toxic levels of trace elements. Full description.

This site features a tutorial designed to allow students to gain an appreciation of how X-ray crystallography works. Using X-ray diffraction patterns to determine the arrangement of atoms in a molecule requires sophisticated mathematics. This activity depends only on light from an overhead projector passing through a ball-and-stick molecular model placed on the stage of the projector, making it an ... Full description.

This site is intended as a brief introduction to some of the common x-ray diffraction techniques used in materials characterization. It is designed for people who are novices in this field but are interested in using the techniques in their research. Topics include x-ray generation and properties, lattice planes and Bragg's Law, powder and thin film diffraction, texture measurement and pole figures, ... Full description.

This website is a review tutorial of x-ray crystallography. It serves as a refresher of the subject and gives insight into typical problems relating to this technique. Topics include x-ray diffraction, crystal structure determination, and refinement. Links to short explanations on the related topics of powder diffraction, thermal motion, Bragg's Law, and Fourier synthesis and the phase problem are ... Full description.