Humic marine matter and insoluble materials in Antarctic snow

The aim of the present work is to show that the insoluble components of marine origin are always present, together with the soluble ones, in both the coarse fraction and in the fine fraction of the marine aerosol and that they make up a non negligible part of the insoluble material in Antarctic snow. The results obtained show that a large proportion of the insoluble matter present in high altitude Antarctic snow consists of marine organic matter involved in the aerosolization process and that the thermolabile fraction (400 degreesC), largely consisting of fulvic acids, increases with increasing altitude. The effect of distance from the sea coast is harder to demonstrate for particulate fulvic acids at least over the short distances investigated herein (150 km) and owing to the complex orography of the sample areas.