There appear to be two mechanisms for delivering tephra to Shatsky Rise: air fall from eruption clouds and ablation and sinking of floating pumice carried by ocean currents. The relative importance of these phenomena is likely to change across the rise, with the Central High being more prone to pumice events. The currents that formed the large drifts that contain the ash layers have likely modified the record of ash accumulation on the Central High. One possible source of pumice is the Izu-Bonin arc to the south, which is illustrated by the high vesiculated component present in both Izu-Bonin samples and Site 1208 samples, whereas the Japan and Kurile arcs, as Natland (1993) also concluded, are the likely sources of the airborne ash. Historically, ash correlation in the deep sea has been attempted using criteria such as color, thickness isopachs, and chemical composition, as well as shard morphology. Herein we provide a scheme for fingerprinting and correlating ashes using shard morphology, as well as chemistry, by the glass color and stain information. It is reasonably inexpensive, and because it is petrographically based, it could also be used to correlate lithified tuffs. However, our results indicate that on Shatsky Rise, tephra correlation cannot be based on the compositional/textural data alone.