Micro-particle in surface snow at Princess Elizabeth Land, East Antarctica

During the Austral summer of 1996/1997, the First Chinese Antarctic Inland Expedition reached the inland area about 330 km along the direction around 76°E from Zhongshan Station, and collected 84 surface snow samples at an interval of 4 km . Micro particle analysis of the samples indicates that the micro particle concentration apparently decreases with the increasing of altitude, and the amplitudes of micro particle concentration is much larger in the lower altitude than in the higher altitude. Further analysis of grain size distributions of micro particle, percentage of micro particles from different sources and variations with altitude suggest that micro particles in this area are from a considerably dominant source. Although this area is controlled by polar easterly wind and katabatic wind, transportation and deposition of the micro particles are mainly influenced by marine transportation in coastal area.