A new tecnique for retrieving calcareous microfossils from lithified lime deposits.

Digestion in cold, highly concentrated acetic acid, a technique commonly adopted in conodont studies, is successful in retrieving calcareous microfossils, such as planktic and benthic foraminifera as well as ostracods, from strongly lithified lime deposits (calcilutites, marly calcilutites and fine-grained calcarenites). Moreover, in cases where the standard disaggregation techniques employing hydrogen peroxide or Desogen do not produce clean specimens, acetic acid treatment of the residue will remove residual encrustations and will also improve liberation of the small-sized fraction.