Scientists find out the quality of snow feeding the Kara Sea

The results of the study of the chemical composition of snow entering the flood in the river flow of the Ob River flowing into the Kara Sea became known, goarctic.ru writes.
To collect samples, which was carried out from Barnaul to Salekhard, scientists made a 2,800-kilometer route. They published their findings in the Chemical Geology magazine.
A study by specialists from Tomsk State University, the University of Toulouse and the Institute of Oceanology of the Russian Academy of Sciences showed that in the spring a large amount of harmful elements gets into the area with melting snow: lead, copper, cadmium, caesium, zinc, chromium, selenium, antimony and cobalt.
"Snow sampling was carried out on a large territory, within the catchment area of the Ob River. Analysis of the chemical composition of the samples showed that the snow contains quite high concentrations of many elements, including heavy metals, which can affect the composition of river runoff during the melting of snow. At the same time, there is a fairly high content of colloidal forms of elements in the snow, which can range from 30 to 80%," said Ivan Kritskov, an employee of the BioGeoClim laboratory.
The condition of samples is affected by proximity to large cities of Siberia, large industrial enterprises, flare facilities of oil and gas companies and highways of intensive use. In the northern lower reaches of the Ob, the purity of the snow core is improving.
The authors of the study note the need for studies of rain and snow water to assess the impact of precipitation on the contribution to the migration of elements into the Ob runoff.

Alex Shishlo for Rough&Polished