Facilities and Equipment
The Penn Paleoecology lab features Leica Microsystems microscopes and imaging systems for the analysis and is updating its documentation of a variety of archaeological and comparative materials. It is also developing its facilities for the extraction of phytoliths and pollen and the preparation of isotopic samples.
Within the laboratory, we host botanical comparative collections of seeds, wood, phytoliths, and pollen, as well as herbarium voucher specimens for diverse flora worldwide. We are in the process of updating our catalogues of these collections and will make those publicly available, in an easily searchable format, in the near future.
See back soon for more details.
The Penn Paleoecology Lab features Leica microscopes and imaging systems for the analysis and documentation both macrobotanical and microbotanical materials. These are currently set up for macrobotanical remains (variety of preservational types), wood charcoal, wood thin section, phytoliths and pollen, and can be used for starch grain analysis as well.
The lab is developing its capability for sample preparation (chemical) of pollen, phytoliths and isotopic samples. A list of the lab equipment used in these processes is being developed as part of this process.
This page includes a list of the Penn Paleoecology Lab SOPs (for sample handling, preparation, analysis and wet-lab work).