A new technique to provide high time resolution snowpack dating for stratigraphy and chemistry assessments

A new technique has been developed to provide quantitative, high temporal resolution information of snow accumulation dynamics in remote polar, alpine, and high-latitude environments which can be used to identify episodic mechanical forcings and chemical inputs to a snowpack. This 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 time interval between microsphere dispersal can range from hours for investigations of individual storms, to months for investigations in polar regions with small snow accumulations. The resulting spatial distribution of microspheres in the snowpack is determined by either core sampling or snow pit sampling, and extracting the microspheres from the snow melt samples for optical analyses. A field test of this technique was successfully conducted at an alpine site and the results of this test along with a chemical analysis of the snow profile are provided.