Testing the performance of sodium polytungstate and lithium heteropolytungstate as non-toxic dense media for pollen extraction from lake and peat sediment samples
Pollen analysis is one of the most important methods to reconstruct past climate change and to understand prehistoric and early historic human-environment interactions. Every study based on fossil pollen assemblages from sedimentary archives starts with the preparation of collected sample material. The most widely employed protocols to concentrate pollen involve the use of several chemicals including hydrofluoric acid (HF), which is extremely hazardous to human health. As an alternative to HF, we have tested the reliability of dense [...]
