ALBERT

Description: Records of chemical impurities from ice cores enable us to reconstruct the past deposition of aerosols onto polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers. Through this they allow us to gain insight into changes of the source, transport and deposition processes that ultimately determine the deposition flux at the coring location. However, the low concentrations of the aerosol species in the ice and the resulting high risk of contamination pose a formidable analytical challenge, especially if long, continuous and highly resolved records are needed. Continuous flow analysis, CFA, the continuous melting, decontamination and analysis of ice-core samples has mostly overcome this issue and has quickly become the de facto standard to obtain high-resolution aerosol records from ice cores after its inception at the University of Bern in the mid-1990s. Here, we present continuous records of calcium (Ca2+), sodium (Na+), ammonium (NH4+), nitrate (NO3-) and electrolytic conductivity at 1 mm depth resolution from the NGRIP (North Greenland Ice Core Project) and NEEM (North Greenland Eemian Ice Drilling) ice cores produced by the Bern Continuous Flow Analysis group in the years 2000 to 2011 (Erhardt et al., 2021). Both of the records were previously used in a number of studies but were never published in full 1 mm resolution. Alongside the 1 mm datasets we provide decadal averages, a detailed description of the methods, relevant references, an assessment of the quality of the data and its usable resolution. Along the way we will also give some historical context on the development of the Bern CFA system. The data is available in full 1 mm and 10-year-averaged resolution on PANGAEA (https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.935838, Erhardt et al., 2021)

Description: The evaluation of the effect of organic compounds and microorganisms in formation and precipitation of colloids using artificial brines was performed by TNO using selected organic compounds based on the analysis of sampled fluids corresponding to the information gathered on the sites by GFZ. The same was done with biofilms prepared with microorganisms (Thermaerobacter sp., Penicilium citrinum) isolated from geothermal stations by UNINE. All carboxylic acids tested had an inhibiting effect on the precipitation of calcium carbonate. The biofilm components seem to develop intense interaction with the ions, nuclei and/or crystals formed during the executed experiments. In the presence of biofilms, the transformation of the intrinsically formed vaterite morphology to equilibrium calcite morphologies is delayed or hindered and scaling was inhibited.