The mineral in question is in your picture: actinolite (the greenish mineral at the base) - an amphibole which indeed has asbestos qualities. They probably did good to protest and shut operations down...
Shale is BTW probably not the right word, especially not in juxtaposition with gneiss. Shale is the description for a sedimentary rock, gneiss for metamorphosed rock. Highly unlikely to find the two side by side in the very core of the Alps!
AFAIK, shale is the exact word for Schiefer, but the way I read it, it is meant to be metamorphosed, too. Since then, I found another article in German (pdf!) that confirms the composition of the surrounding stone as a mixture of metamorphosed gneiss and shale:
Beim Lötschherg-Basistunnel wurde das natürliche Mineral Aktinolith angetroffen, und zwar in alpinen Klüften kalkamphibolführender Gesteine (Amphibolite, Hornblendefels, kristaline Schiefer und schiefrige bis massige amphilolführenden Gneise).
If with Schiefer a metamorphosed rock is meant, it can't be translated with the English shale. Period.
In your next blockquote they talk about "kristaline Schiefer" - I could interpret that as metamorphosed shale. There is no German word for slate? And what a Hornblendefels exactly is, I can't say either. Hornblende I know, hornfels ditto.
Argh.
(And now for the ultimate PN points: Metamorphosed gneiss is a pleonasm. Gneiss suffices.)
hmm: metamorphis
interesting as wellall the things I didn't know about Schiefer (in english)
1) Give a lengthy and unnecessary diatribe concerning the differences and meta-wars being fought over these terms (and apparently in different languages as well).
or
2) Congratulate you all with your more than brilliant sleuthing in geological terms and have a beer now.
PeWi, I didn't know about the schist soils... I'll dig into that later.
For now, I'll opt for option 2. G'night!!
I find in German, Hornblende is the mineral (equivalent to Amphibole), and Hornblendefels is rock consisting of that mineral only.
I also find that slate shale are both translate to Schiefer. The German Wiki even mentions the language difference:
Im Englischen wird zwischen dem unstrukturierten Sedimentgestein (shale) und dem metamorphen Produkt (slate) unterschieden; letzteres ist der Schiefer im engeren Sinne.
About methamorposed and gneiss, the 'methamorphosed' applies both to Gneis and Schiefer in that sentence, so it's not redundant. *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
