An investigation by analytical transmission electron microscopy of individual insoluble microparticles from Antarctic (Dome C) ice core samples

Analytical transmission electron microscopy was used to study 225 insoluble microparticles in 6 ice samples formed under different climatic conditions over the last 30,000 years in the Antarctic Dome C ice core. The aim was to identify the mineralogy of dust and investigate the geographic location of sources and their variations with time.

As already suggested by previous work, it is confirmed that microparticles have mostly aterrigenous (aeolian) origin as revealed by identification of various clays (mostly illites), quartz and felspars in the 6 levels. Except for some products attributed to volcanic activity, the mineralogy of particles appears to be randomly mixed and shows no significant change nor particular signature of a specific source over the studied period. However, kaolinite, considered to be a tracer of low latitude dust source areas, was too low in content to suggest that the tropical area was a main source of Dome C dust over the studied period.