Some considerations on the element relationship in glacier snow samples

The distribution of chemical components in glacier snow samples from two Alpine glaciers has been studied by simple multi‐variate statistical techniques. Nine different cations and anions were checked to find a proper classification pattern of their similarity or dissimilarity. The results of the formal arrangement thus obtained reveal a possible way to interpret chemical speciation in glacier snow samples.

Key words:

• Glacier snow samples
• chemical analysis of cations (sodium, potassium, magnesium, calcium, ammonium, pH) and anions (sulphate, nitrate, chloride)
• cluster analysis
• correlation coefficient as similarity measure