APECS Webinars

This webinar provided participants with an overview of traditional and emerging methods for the analysis of ice core chemistry. Traditional systems rely upon a heated metal disk or plate to melt the ice prior to analysis by ion chromatography or inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS). Emerging instrumentation, such as that utilized by the University of Maine Climate Change Institute’s W. M. Keck Laser Ice Facility, combines state of the art laser ablation sample introduction with ICP-MS analysis. The latter method offers greatly enhanced sample resolution thereby allowing the recovery of sub-annual signals from regions with very low accumulation rates, in highly compressed ice at great depths, and in regions of ascending flow (blue-ice exposures). The types of research questions each method is best suited to answer was discussed so that early-career scientists become familiar with the best methods used for their own research.