SEPARATION OF PARTICLES INCLUDED IN NATURAL ICE BY ADAPTED SUBLIMATION

Abstract

Non-soluble particles trapped in natural ice (glaciers, permafrost, hail) provide valuable information about the environments in which they were formed. The extraction of the particles is usually carried out through the melting of ice and subsequent filtering of the water obtained. Here, a novel methodology for extracting ice particles from the solid phase is presented, which is efficient, low-cost in infrastructure, and minimizes possible sources of contamination. This methodology of adapted sublimation particle separation allows to determine the spatial distribution and concentration of non-soluble particles, as well as their sizes (without the limitations of filtration), their shape, structure and elemental chemical composition. The method is in this case applied to hail collected during the program COSECHEROS, which has a medium-sized particle of 40 μm at its center