Changes in cadmium concentrations in Antarctic ice and snow during the past 155,000 years

• Published in: Earth and Planetary Science Letters
• Main Authors: Boutron, Claude F., Rudniev, Sergei N., Bolshov, Michael A., Koloshnikov, Vsevolod G., Patterson, Clair C., Barkov, N. I.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: Elsevier 1993
• Subjects: Antarc*; Antarctic; Antarctique*
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1016/0012-821X(93)90095-Q

Changes in Cd concentrations in Antarctic ice and snow during the last full climatic cycle (the past 155,000 yrs) have been investigated by analysing various sections of the Dome C and Vostok deep Antarctic ice cores and several blocks of recent Antarctic snow. Each sample was mechanically decontaminated using ultraclean procedures and then analysed for Cd by the new ultrasensitive laser excited atomic fluorescence technique. Cd concentrations are found to have been highly variable in ancient Antarctic ice and therefore in the past pristine south polar atmosphere during the last climatic cycle, the highest values being observed during the cold terminal stages of the last and next to last ice ages. Concentrations measured in recent Antarctic snows are comparable with those in Antarctic Holocene ice several thousand years old, which suggests that the anthropogenic influence is probably still negligible for this heavy metal in the south polar atmosphere. For some of the samples, measured Cd concentrations can be simply accounted for by rock and soil dust and volcanic emissions, while for others there is a significant excess over the contributions from these two sources. © 1993 Elsevier Science Publishers B.V., Amsterdam. Received September 25, 1992; revision accepted April 5, 1993. This work was supported in France by the Ministère de l'Environnement (grant 89104), Terres Australes et Antarctiques Françaises, Expéditions Polaires Françaises and the University of Grenoble, in the USA by the Division of Polar Programmes of the US National Science Foundation (grant DPP 840-3490), and in the former USSR by the Academy of Sciences and the Soviet Antarctic Expedition. The collaboration between the Laboratoire de Glaciologie et Géophysique de l'Environnement and the Institute of Spectroscopy was established within the framework of the French-Soviet Commission (Scientific Instrumentation Group). We thank D. Settle for her participation in the decontamination of the samples and F.P. Hartmann for his continuous ...