Evaluation of contamination in preparation of an Antarctic ice core for microparticle analysis with SEM-EDX

• Main Authors: クドウ ヨシユキ, ナカムラ ヒサミツ, スザワ タカヨシ, フルヤ ケイイチ, キクチ タダシ, カミヤマ コキチ, ワタナベ オキツグ, Yoshiyuki Kudo, Hisamitsu Nakamura, Takayoshi Suzawa, Keiichi Furuya, Tadashi Kikuchi, Kokichi Kamiyama, Okitsugu Watanabe
• Format: Report
• Language: English
• Published: Scientific Paper 2000
• Subjects: Antarctic; Mizuho; Antarc*; ice core; Polar meteorology and glaciology
• Online Access: https://nipr.repo.nii.ac.jp/?action=repository_uri&item_id=2911; http://id.nii.ac.jp/1291/00002911/; https://nipr.repo.nii.ac.jp/?action=repository_action_common_download&item_id=2911&item_no=1&attribute_id=18&file_no=1

A sample treatment method was established for the SEM-EDX analysis of solid microparticles in an Antarctic ice core. The numbers of contamination-particles all through the processes from cutting the specimen from the stored ice core to SEM observation were investigated. An ice core specimen (63.0g, depth 384.00m-384.11m) obtained from Mizuho ice core (No. 840628,M'-521,depth 383.82m-384.32m) was melted at room temperature on a clean bench; 10.9g of the resulting melt water was filtered with a Nuclepore membrane filter (pore size 0.2μm, diameter 13mm). 115 particles were detected from an optical domain of 520μm×320μm, 1/450 of the effective filtration area, randomly selected under SEM observation with 20000 magnification. A parallel experiment for the background revealed that it included about 4-5 contaminated particles. The average size of particles from the ice core specimen was 1.6μm, and silicate minerals (77%), silica (20%) and other (3%) were classified from the results of EDX analysis. The number of particles in the ice core specimen (Mizuho core at 384m in depth) was estimated as 4700±520/g from the results of parallel experiments using synthesized monodispersed hematite particles.