环境同位素^3H在青藏高原多年冻土区地下冰研究中的应用

Applications of Environmental Isotope Tritium to Research Into Ground Ice in Permafrost Regions of Qinghai-Xizang Plateau

Tritium is a kind of isotope of hydrogen. It is a ideal tracer element in natural water circulation. The tritium analysis come into use not only in glacier snow and precipitation but also in ground ice in permafrost regions. A lot of tritium analyses showed that the tritium concentrations of precipitation (fresh snow), surface water (river or lake), groundwater deeply under frozen layer, and many kinds of ground ices in permafrost regions of Qinghai-Xizang plateau are all lower than those in the Mackenzie River valley area of Nourth America. Because the tritium concentrations are different in different water, various ground ices differ each other greatly in the tritium concentrations. We can use these differences to judge what the main reason to form a pingo is, where there the complement water came from, and when the ice formed relatively. Tritium analysis is also a new method in studying the water moving or migrating cryogenic structure and cryogenic phenomena in permafrost regions.