Determination of elements in snow and water samples on Jan Mayen

• Main Author: Østvedt, Thobias Hans
• Other Authors: Gjengedal, Elin Lovise Folven, Hammer, Stine Eriksen
• Format: Master Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Ås 2022
• Subjects: Arctic; Norway; Jan Mayen; albedo; glacier; Iceland
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/11250/3013603

Iceland is considered one of the greatest dust emission sources in the Arctic. Once the dust is deposited, it significantly affects snow and ice albedo. This hastens the glacier melting and leads to new accessible dust sources priorly covered by snow and ice. To elucidate the effect of increased dust emission in high-latitude areas of the world, the HiLDA project was created. HiLDA aims to make a model for high-latitude dust emission and characterize the dust emission and transport processes using Iceland as a model source. During the summer of 2021, an expedition to Jan Mayen was conducted for sample collection, where among others, meltwater and snow samples were collected in a transect with a snow pit at 1300 m.a.s.l. These samples were analyzed for mercury- and multielement determination using Inductively Coupled Plasma - Mass Spectrometry (ICP-MS) and Inductively Coupled Plasma - Optical Emission Spectrometry (ICP-OES). A cold-vapor separation unit was used in tandem with ICPMS during the mercury determination. Particles from one of the samples were examined with a Variable Pressure - Scanning Electron Microscope (VP-SEM). These analyses aimed to investigate the element concentrations in snow and meltwater on Jan Mayen, looking for trends in element concentrations in correlation with altitude and comparing the data with element concentrations found in data published in the literature. The data showed that samples collected from altitudes above 1000 meters were less likely to be influenced by local dust and rather more likely by long-distance atmospheric dust. Elements commonly found in Icelandic basaltic dust, such as iron (Fe) and aluminum (Al), were negatively correlated with increasing altitude, with p-values below 10-05 . The back trajectories affecting Jan Mayen come from the north and southwest, which indicates that particles originating from Iceland can be a contributor to dust on Jan Mayen. Comparisons of aluminum and iron concentrations from the snow pit on Jan Mayen with data from the literature ...