Turns out linoleum is one of those words like "kleenex" which used to mean a specific product but now means lots of different things. In particular, people say "linoleum" to mean "vinyl sheet flooring" and they're actually very different things. We had a difficult time telling from the internet, but our best guess is that the statement should really be "if you have vinyl sheet flooring from before 1970 it probably has asbestos in it" and ours did! The asbestos was found in the typical location, in the fiber backing to the vinyl. When they tore up the floor in our kitchen though we discovered another type of flooring.
I could see this one had a burlap back on it, which is a typical characteristic of a TRUE linoleum and the internet suggests that having asbestos in a true linoleum is less common (than with the vinyl flooring). So we paid the extra money to have this flooring tested and sure enough, no asbestos! Yay! This is some interesting stuff. See how it's all blackened? It is my belief that the green vinyl was actually chosen to MATCH the linoleum, but the linoleum didn't hold up as well over time (and under concrete) as the vinyl did. This isn't so surprising given that it's made of more natural materials.
Another interesting feature of the linoleum is this red strip all around the edge. With vinyl flooring you really try not to have multiple pieces because and edges will curl up. I guess linoleum didn't have that problem because they just put an extra red stripe around the edge. I really wonder what our kitchen used to look like back in the day.
