Extraction of rhyolitic component of Vedde microtephra from minerogenic lake sediments

A technique is described for the extraction of rhyolitic microtephra from inorganic Lateglacial lake sediments. This technique was successfully applied by Lowe and Turney (1996) and is an adaption of the method described by Pilcher and Hall (1992) for application to Holocene peat deposits. It uses a density separation procedure to concentrate any microtephra component in lake sediments and was applied to the investigation of a lake sediment succession from a small basin in NE Scotland. Using this approach is was possible to define quantitatively for the first time the presence of the Vedde Ash tephra layer on the British Isles.