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Biotic and abiotic processes controlling water chemistry during snowmelt at rabbit ears pass, Rocky Mountains, Colorado, U.S.A.

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Abstract

The chemical composition of snowmelt, groundwater, and streamwater was monitored during the spring of 1991 and 1992 in a 200-ha subalpine catchment on the western flank of the Rocky Mountains near Steamboat Springs, Colorado. Most of the snowmelt occurred during a one-month period annually that began in mid-May 1991 and mid-April 1992. The average water quality characteristics of individual sampling sites (meltwater, streamwater, and groundwater) were similar in 1991 and 1992. The major ions in meltwater were differentially eluted from the snowpack, and meltwater was dominated by Ca2+, SO 2−4 , and NO −3 . Groundwater and streamwater were dominated by weathering products, including Ca2+, HCO −3 (measured as alkalinity), and SiO2, and their concentrations decreased as snowmelt progressed. One well had extremely high NO −3 . concentrations, which were balanced by Ca2+ concentrations. For this well, hydrogen ion was hypothesized to be generated from nitrification in overlying soils, and subsequently exchanged with other cations, particularly Ca2+.

Solute concentrations in streamwater also decreased as snowmelt progressed. Variations in groundwater levels and solute concentrations indicate that most of the meltwater traveled through the surficial materials. A mass balance for 1992 indicated that the watershed retained H+, NH +4 , NO −3 , SO 2−4 and Cl− and was the primary source of base cations and other weathering products. Proportionally more SO 2−4 was deposited with the unusually high summer rainfall in 1992 compared to that released from snowmelt, whereas NO −3 was higher in snowmelt and Cl− was the same. The sum of snowmelt and rainfall could account for greater than 90% of the H+ and NH +4 retained by the watershed and greater than 50% of the NO −3 .

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  1. U.S. Geological Survey, WRD, 3039 Amwiler Rd., Suite 130, 30360-2824, Atlanta, GA, USA

    Norman E. Peters

  2. U.S. Geological Survey, WRD, Mail Stop 412, Denver Federal Center, 80225, Lakewood, CO, USA

    George H. Leavesley

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  1. Norman E. Peters
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Peters, N.E., Leavesley, G.H. Biotic and abiotic processes controlling water chemistry during snowmelt at rabbit ears pass, Rocky Mountains, Colorado, U.S.A.. Water Air Soil Pollut 79, 171–190 (1995). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01100436

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