An inexpensive sieving method for concentrating pollen and spores from fine-grained sediments

Abstract

A sieving method is described for concentrating pollen and spores from fine-grained sediments. The effectiveness of nylon screens with 5, 7, 10, and 15 μm meshes was tested in comparison with both standard digestion and sodium pyrophosphate suspension procedures.Sieving through 7 μm mesh screens recovers more pollen than any of the other methods tested and effectively removes fines with a negligible loss of pollen (0.4%). We recommend this method for general use with fine-grained minerogenic sediments. Thus, it is possible to process and count more reliably to statistically significant sums, clay and silt-rich samples previously considered either barren of pollen or too time consuming to count.