Continuous melting and ion chromatographic analyses of ice cores

A new method for determining concentrations of organic and inorganic ions i n ice cores by continuous melting and contemporaneous ion chromatographic a nalyses was developed. A subcore is melted on a melting device and the melt water produced is collected in two parallel sample leaps and then analyzed simultaneously by two ion chromatographs, one for anions and one for cation s. For most of the analyzed species, lower or equal blank values were achie ved with the continuous melting and analysis technique compared to the conv entional analysis. Comparison of the continuous melting and ion chromatogra phic analysis with the conventional analysis of a real ice core segment sho wed good agreement in concentration profiles and total amounts of ionic spe cies. Thus, the newly developed method is well suited for ice core analysis and has the advantages of lower ice consumption, less time-consuming sampl e preparation and lower risk of contamination. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science BN . All rights reserved.