Note that these pictures of asbestos are for informational purposes only. It takes training and experience to differentiate one fiber from another. If you need to know if asbestos is present, then please check out our section on asbestos testing. All images are copyrighted – do not copy (email me if you want to use a copy.)

Click on any image to see a larger version

These two pictures are of a chrysotile asbestos bundle sticking out of acoustical material. This type of material was sprayed on hard surfaces to blunt the way sound waves bounce off. Chrysotile asbestos is sometimes described as “silky” or “cottony.”

This is a picture of insulation material that one might find around pipe or boilers. The long straight fibers are amosite asbestos, and the more wavy fibers are chrysotile asbestos.

This is a fabric mesh made with chrysotile asbestos. This shows how chrysotile asbestos could be used in many applications much like any textile would be.

This is a picture of the back of linoleum. Sometimes the fiber backing is just cellulose, sometimes it is chrysotile asbestos, and sometimes it is both chrysotile and cellulose. This picture is of the type that is mainly chrysotile.

Transite siding is pictured here. There is small bundle of chrysotile asbestos protruding from the surface.

This is a picture of amosite asbestos in a pure form.

Chrysotile asbestos is pictured at high magnification from a polarized light microscope. The entire bundle is less that the width as a human hair, but as you can see the bundle is composed of much smaller fibers. A true fibril of chrysotile can be so thin that only an electron microscope could detect it.

This microscope image is of amosite asbestos. Again, each of these fibers are much narrower than the width of a human hair.

To learn more about finding asbestos, checkout our section on asbestos testing.