I am looking for a protocol to isolate and mount fossil pollen plates from coastal sediments. I have a little experience working with fresh plant material for pollen analysis.
Thanks!
Dear Yoannis, if "simple" means "short", no method exists: pollen preparation is always time consuming, but it is not difficult. You need HCl, HF, KOH (or NaOH), to remove carbonates, silicates and humic acids, respectively. Moreover, you must sieve at 180 micron and 10 (or 7) micron to remove debris "noise". List of textbook suggested by Alwynne is perfect. Ciao, Fabio!
Hi Yoannis,
Although I am not palynologist, but am very interested in this subject. I have a procedure for Quaternary pollen and you may have a look to the attached file. Hope this will help you.
Hi Yannis,
instead of using HF, which is so dangerous, you should try analysis with SPT, SodiumPolyTungstate, personnaly I don't use it anymore, and I am working with lakes or archaeological sediments :
Thanks to all for the suggestions! I will check the cited refrences. Alwynne, could you please send me a copy of the paper you have mentioned?
Yoannis
Hello Yoannis,
If you are working on soft sediments (like lake sediments), you can use from one of these methods for preparing the samples: (I) Acid Reduction Method: This method is common way to extraction pollen grains and are used in most pollen preparation laboratories. In this method pollen samples using KOH, HCl, HF and Acetolysis are prepared. You can find detailed pollen extraction method in the attached file. (II) Flotation in Heavy Liquid Method: in this way using heavy liquid pollen grains separate from sediment composition based on their special weight. There are some heavy liquid for this purpose such as zinc bromide, zinc iodide and SPT. However, SPT is preferred to Zinc bromide and Zinc iodide because these are poisonous and hazardous. In spite of this advantage, SPT is hard to access and expensive as well. Detailed protocol of pollen extraction using flotation in heavy liquid is accessible in the following link:
https://www.researchgate.net/post/Can_anybody_recommend_a_procedure_for_fast_preparation_of_fossil_pollen_samples/1
Good luck,
Reza.
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