A NEW TECHNIQUE TO PROVIDE HIGH TIME RESOLUTION SNOWPACK DATING FOR STRATIGRAPHY AND CHEMISTRY

A new technique has been developed to provide quantitative, high tempo ral resolution information of snow accumulation dynamics in remote pol ar, alpine, and high-latitude environments which can be used to identi fy episodic mechanical forcings and chemical inputs to a snowpack. Thi s technique uses a device which disperses inert, colored (high albedo) glass microspheres onto a snow surface at known time intervals to act as a tracer and time marker. Dating individual layers of the snowpack is obtained by using a sequence of several microsphere colors. The ti me interval between microsphere dispersal can range from hours for inv estigations of individual storms, to months for investigations in pola r regions with small snow accumulations. The resulting spatial distrib ution of microspheres in the snowpack is determined by either core sam pling or snow pit sampling, and extracting the microspheres from the s now melt samples for optical analyses. A field test of this technique was successfully conducted at an alpine site and the results of this t est along with a chemical analysis of the snow profile are provided.