  A fundamental result of Mader from 1972 asserts that a graph of high average
degree contains a highly connected subgraph with roughly the same average
degree. We prove a lemma showing that one can strengthen Mader's result by
replacing the notion of high connectivity by the notion of vertex expansion.
  Another well known result in graph theory states that for every integer t
there is a smallest real c(t) so that every n-vertex graph with c(t)n edges
contains a K_t-minor. Fiorini, Joret, Theis and Wood conjectured that if an
n-vertex graph G has (c(t)+\epsilon)n edges then G contains a K_t-minor of
order at most C(\epsilon)log n. We use our extension of Mader's theorem to
prove that such a graph G must contain a K_t-minor of order at most
C(\epsilon)log n loglog n. Known constructions of graphs with high girth show
that this result is tight up to the loglog n factor.
