Dissaggregation

[tpatters@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Tim Patterson)]

I have been reading all of the tips on dissaggregation with great
interest.  I still find the "kerosene method" to be ther best for most
harder samples.  As Jere mentioned it was the method of choice at UCLA
and still was up to the mid 80's when I was there although those
burning pots were a bit disconcerting.  I still use it today here at
Carleton but had to jump through lots of hoops with our safety people.
Samples have to be seived many times to ensure that virtually no
kerosece is being heated.  In addition we cannot allow any kerosence
to escape into the environment (i.e. down the drain)
Anyway if one can come to an aggreement with campus environmental
police I think that kerosene is the way to go.  I used quaternary-o
for a little while but discontinued it even prior to it being pulled
from the market because it dissolved many of the more delicate
calcareous foraminifera.  Jean-Pierre Guilbault in Montreal recently told me
that he did an experiment with quaterary-o and found similar results.
Not too good if you are interested in the whole foram population.
Don't know what some of these newer agents do but it might be worth
splitting a sample and seeing if they are as hard on samples as
quaternary-o was.  Tim Patterson

R. Timothy Patterson
Associate Professor
Department of Earth Sciences
Carleton University
Ottawa, Ontario
K1S 5B6
tpatters@ccs.carleton.ca