ANALYSIS OF THE ARCTIC AEROSOL FOR A 10-YEAR PERIOD USING VARIOUS NEUTRON-ACTIVATION ANALYSIS-METHODS

During the past decade we have determined the concentrations of a vari ety of trace elements in the Arctic aerosol by using thermal and epith ermal neutron activation analysis (NAA). More recently we have employe d Compton suppression NAA to lower the detection limits for radionucli des that are characteristic of single or mainly single gamma-ray emiss ion. Using these various methods, we have been able to use elements su ch as indium and silicon. Furthermore we have achieved extremely low d etection limits for iodine, arsenic and antimony. The usefulness of th ese NAA methods are discussed in a large sampling program that incorpo rates more than one thousand samples.