QUB | Archaeology and Palaeoecology | The 14Chrono Centre

Manual for psimpoll and pscomb

Format of main input file

Prefixes of taxon names for taxa with special input requirements

!

Pollen rarefaction data (palynological richness: see Birks & Line 1992). The data here must include, immediately after the name, the count size of standardization, then three values per sample (estimate, lower limit, upper limit, in that order). All three values must be present, even if the sample is considered a missing value (by entering it as (by default) -1: see menu Bg). Plots are labelled `E(Tn)', where n is a subscript giving the count size for standardization;

<

(by itself, or a line beginning with <) Data for summary diagram. May, optionally, be followed (on the same line, and separated by spaces) by values for the grey level or colours to be used in shading the summary diagram. Must be followed, on the next line, by number of taxa in the summary, then the data for each, in the usual format (name, values). Summary counts as one taxon in input Item 2, however many types it includes. By default, taxa in this summary are plotted in a cumulative style, with changing shades of grey at even intervals from solid black (first type, shade 0.0) towards white (last type, shade 1.0). So, with four taxa in the summary, the default grey shades are 0, 0.33, 0.67, and 1.0. Providing grey values after the < over-rides this default behaviour. Colours for each of the summary taxa can be specified by giving their colour identifiers after the <, each prefixed by a '-'; There can only be one summary diagram in an input file. pscomb can be used to combine summary diagrams from the output of multiple input files.

-

Ignore this taxon;

*

Data are pollen sums, to be printed as values (not labelled), and used to obtain confidence intervals on percentages. Values are printed in a single column, unless there are more than 50 samples or the option in menu Bd is selected, in which case the values are printed in two columns.

Prefixes that affect labelling and presentation of axes

\

Use as a first character to prevent the second character from being interpreted as indicating a particular taxon type. For example, `@' switches text between Symbol encoding and ISO Latin-1 encoding (see Technical matters), but is also used to indicate a charcoal:pollen `ratio' (see below). If a taxon name is to be printed entirely in Symbol encoding, it should be prefixed with `\@';

#

Print this taxon at a different scale from the others. Useful with concentration and accumulation rate data;

&

Charcoal data, labelled `cm² cm-³';

%

Charcoal data, labelled `cm² cm-² year-¹';

'

Charcoal data, labelled `cm² g-¹';

@

Charcoal:pollen `ratio', labelled `cm² grain-¹';

+

accumulation rate data if first character of input Item 4 is `c', or concentration data if first character of input Item 4 is `a'. Use for a total curve of the other type of data from the main one for the dataset. Plots are labelled `grains cm-³' or `grains cm-² year-¹', as appropriate;

=

Data are rate of change data between adjacent pairs of samples (so the last data value will always be missing, and should be given as (by default) -1: see menu Bg), in rate of change units per century. Values plot halfway between adjacent pairs of samples, and are labelled `cent.-¹';

*

Data are pollen sums, to be printed as values (not labelled);

:

data are ratio values (dimensionless), labelled `ratio'.

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