Flatonia Texas Eocene Diatomite thread

[bill2penn]

Here are some forms from the heavy fraction of sample K2. Mounted in Zrax. Stacked image using Pl Apo 25X/0.65

[anne]

Hello Texas diatom friends,
I want to add another form from this deposit, very typical but I did not knew it before.
Actinodyction weissflogii and a Stephanopyxis, with valves still together.
best
anne

[bill2penn]

A few forms from sample K3. The twisted one is found in several of the samples now.
Bill

[anne]

Dear diatom friends,
I finished cleaning prcedure of K7 yesterday and have done two quick and dirty strews of the last drop in the pot. I just want to show two images of this to the community. This allows them to get a sense of the sample and also to assess that the species shown here tend to be among the rarer finds. The overview highlights the high content of Actinoptychus and the highly dominant Brighwellia (?) or Coscinodiscus bulliens (?) can be seen here.
best
anne

[Peter T.]

Liebe Anne,

der Thread ist ohnehin der Wahnsinn, aber Deine vollständige Stephanopyxis muss ich immer wieder anschauen. Wunderschön!

Beste Grüße

Peter

[bill2penn]

Hello Flatonia collaborators,
I want to caution you about sieving and disposing of the filtrate before you analyze it. I have made the mistake several times. I have been using 15 micron polyester fabric as my sieve material thinking that would be plenty. Today I finally checked on the filtrate from sample K3 and found the following after I had done some "gold panning" to remove some of the larger grains of sand. Notice how many forms are in there!! I also provide a similar image of my 15 micron polyester fabric.
Klaus Kemp always told me "don't throw anything away!". I should have listened more closely.

Bill

[Beatsy]

Hi Bill,

I got loads of forms going through a 10µm stainless mesh too (R1, K2, K3 and K11). The mesh is more of a weave really as you can't see light through it. Forms (and dust) get through the gaps under the overlapped wires.

Panning tiny amounts in a mini petri dish gets rid of some rubbish, but it's a very slow and repetitive process. Quite a challenge to nicely image such tiny forms too.

So far, I've concentrated on cleaning and picking (and re-cleaning). Mounts and pics soon though.

Cheers
Beats

[Michael K.]

Hello everyone,

I filter out the larger particles (25 µm filter). Everything smaller I decant and filter using the gold panning method.

I've already described this process here.

I noticed that there are very small diatoms in there that pass through the 25 µm filter in the first sample after cleaning.

Best regards,
Michael