Good day to everyone,
I've got a question that someone may be able to help me with.
I'm dissolving calcareous clasts to look for small shelly fossils, one of the samples (we know it has fossils because we saw them in thin sections) is a marga, I already dissolved the calcareous part so I have a meta-pelite left. I found a way to prepare clay in Jeppsson et al., 1999, but I don't think it applies here due to a light recristalization in my sample.
Any suggestions to prepare the meta-pelite?
Thanks
Hola Ramiro,
After fractionation and acid etching of the concerned blocks (already done, seemingly), you shall plunge your dry samples in a solution of water with diluted peroxide (H2O2, ~40%). Consider 5 cm3 per liter. If it bubbles up, you will then get rid of clay content in sieving the residue. You may recover a microfossil-enriched residue.
That is what we do for pelites and clayey limestones in Western Amazonia and in the Andes (post-Paleozoic).
I would recommend trying on a small sample first, indeed!
Suerte!
PierrO