Table 1.

Destructive and non-destructive techniques developed for extracting and isolating cryptotephra deposits. Some indicative references are included. For a comprehensive review of extraction techniques see Gehrels et al. (2008) and Lowe (2011)

Extraction technique	Host material	Indicative references
Destructive techniques
Ashing	Peat	Dugmore (1989); Pilcher and Hall (1992)
Acid digestion	Peat	Dugmore et al. (1995)
Microwave digestion	Peat	Payne and Blackford (2006)
Alkali treatment	Diatom-rich lacustrine sediment	Rose et al. (1996)
Density separation	Mineral-rich, e.g. lacustrine, marine, archaeological, soil	Turney (1998); Abbott et al. (2011); Lane et al. (2014)
Melting & centrifugation	Ice	Davies et al. (2010b); Abbott and Davies (2012)
Magnetic separation	Mineral-rich	Mackie et al. (2002); Griggs et al. (2014b)
X-ray diffraction	Marine	Andrews et al. (2006)
Thin sections & micromorphology	Lacustrine (especially varve sequences); marine; peat	Wulf (2004); De et al. (2008); De Vleeschouwer et al. (2008); Griggs et al. (2014b)
Non-destructive techniques
Continuously imaging flow cytometer	Lacustrine	D’Anjou et al. (2014)
XRF	Lacustrine, marine, peat	Kylander et al. (2012)
Magnetic susceptibility	Peat & mineral-rich sediment	Peters et al. (2010)
Spectrometry (light reflectance)	Peat	Caseldine et al. (1999)
X-radiography	Peat	Dugmore and Newton (1992)