ON THE D.C. ELECTRICAL CONDUCTIVITY AND ACIDITY OF POLAR ICE CORES

• Main Author: Hammer, C.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 1987
• Subjects: [PHYS.HIST]Physics [physics]/Physics archives; Byrd; ice core
• Online Access: https://hal.science/jpa-00226459; https://hal.science/jpa-00226459/document; https://hal.science/jpa-00226459/file/ajp-jphyscol198748C193.pdf; https://doi.org/10.1051/jphyscol:1987193

The electrical conductivity method, ECM is a method, which has proven to be a powerfull tool in glaciology, as it serves to indicate ice layers of high acidity in polar ice cores (1) : such layers are often associated with deposition of acid products from volcanic eruptions. The ECM technique has also been applied to infer seasonal changes in ice acidity as well as to indicate layers of low acidity and alkaline ice (1), (2) and (3). Presently a controversy exists concerning the precision of the method, especially for ice core acidities in the range of neutral to approximately 3µeq.H+/kg ice (4). In this paper an attempt is made to discuss both the cause for this controversy and to present data, which suggest, that the ECM is a quantitative method if applied correctly. The paper is divided into two parts : 1) Acidity, pH and ECM 2) Some electrical conduction experiments on polar ice cores. The second part should help to solve the problem of d.c. electrical conduction of polar ice. Among the experiments are e.g. the measuring of activation energies of low and high conductive layers in the Byrd ice core the temperature range from -7°C to -43°C. Finally the conduction mechanism will be discussed in terms of the mobility of charge carriers in ice, electrical field and charge transfer at the electrodes.