Abstract
Use of an airborne quartz crystal microbalance cascade impactor instrument together with a correlation spectrometer has allowed the flux of particles and their size distribution to be determined at Mount Erebus. The plume contributes 21±3 metric tomnes/day of aerosol particles to the Antarctic upper troposphere. The aerosol particles consist of larger (5–25 μm) particles of elemental sulfur and silica, a middle sized group of iron oxides and smaller particles (less than 1 μm) of complex liquids. Unlike many volcanic plumes, the Erebus plume has only a small amount of sulfate particles. The concentrations of particles in the Erebus plumes was 70–370 μm/m3. Limited sampling of the Antarctic atmosphere at 8 km altitude but hundreds of km away from Erebus obtained a few large particles of sulfur and silicates, suggesting a similarity with the Erebus plume. The fallout of these particles occurs slowly over a broad area of the Antarctic continent.
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Chuan, R.L., Palais, J., Rose, W.I. et al. Fluxes, sizes, morphology and compositions of particles in the Mt. Erebus volcanic plume, December 1983. J Atmos Chem 4, 467–477 (1986). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00053846
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00053846
Key words
- Antarctic aerosol
- size distribution
- volcanic plume