Madpaddy,
"A lesson for you fenchy. Note the second last sentence please."
Apart from me not being a Frenchy.... is there anything in your "cut and paste" that contradicts what I said?
"Larger rock fragments more than 2 inches across ejected by the explosion typically fall within a few miles of the eruption site. However, wind can quickly blow fine ash away from the volcano to form an eruption cloud. As the cloud drifts downwind from the erupting volcano, the ash that falls from the cloud typically becomes smaller in size and forms a thinner layer."
So collecting ash and debris from the ground a few miles downwind from the volcano for testing is a pretty pointless exercise. The "interesting" stuff is already airborne in the eruption cloud.
CJ