In order to thoroughly investigate the diversity of glacier microorganisms, four DNA extraction methods with different lysis patterns were tested and two screened methods (the Bosshard-Bano method and the Zhou method) were optimized for the most effective form of the filter membrane (cut vs. uncut), the DNA extraction method, and the precipitation method. The two optimized methods were then compared with the commercial Mo-Bio DNA extraction kit, and the results showed that the kit was generally suitable for extraction of microorganism DNA from glacier surface snow. Procedurally, it was found that a modified Bosshard-Bano method (i.e., cutting the filter membrane into pieces, using a specific lysis pattern [lysozyme (5 mg/mL)-protease K (1 mg/mL)-CTAB (1%)-SDS (1%)], performing the extraction only once by chloroform-isoamyl alcohol (24:1), and conducting DNA precipitation by pure ethanol) was also an effective and less expensive method for extraction of microorganism DNA from glacier surface snow.
PeiYing YanShuGui HouTuo ChenShuHong ZhangWeiJun Sun
Using the recent compilation of the isotopic composition data of surface snow of Antarctic ice sheet, we proposed an improved interpolation method of δD, which utilizes geographical factors (i.e., latitude and altitude) as the primary predictors and incorporates inverse distance weighting (IDW) technique. The method was applied to a high-resolution digital elevation model (DEM) to produce a grid map of multi-year mean δD values with 1km spatial resolution for Antarctica. The mean absolute deviation between observed and estimated data in the map is about 5.4‰, and the standard deviation is 9‰. The resulting δD pattern resembles well known characteristics such as the depletion of the heavy isotopes with increasing latitude and distance from coast line, but also reveals the complex topographic effects.
Based on the horizon of β activity and the density profiles, recent accumulation rate at Dome A, Ant-arctica is calculated to be 0.023 m water equivalent per year. This value is comparative to the accumu-lation rates deduced from the other inland sites of Antarctica. Clear-sky precipitation (or diamond dust) dominates the total precipitation at Dome A region. We speculate Dome A as a potential site to discover the oldest ice in Antarctica due to its tremendous ice thickness (>3000 m), extremely low accumulation rate, and low ice velocity.
The topographic maps of 1:50,000 scales,aerial photographs taken in 1966,one Landsat image taken in 1999,and SRTM data from 2000 were used to quantify the losses in area and volume of the glaciers on the Su-lo Mountain,in the northeastern Tibetan Plateau,China in the past 30 years.The total glacier area decreased from 492.9km2 in 1966 to 458.2km2 in 1999.The volume loss of the studied glaciers reached 1.4 km3 from 1966 to 2000.This agrees with documented changes in other mountain glaciers of the whole Tibetan Plateau.
WANG YetangHOU ShuguiHONG SungminHUR Soon DoLIU Yaping
所有的酸洗过程都是在1000级净化室和净化室内100级层流超净工作台进行的.超纯水是由Millipore RO和Milli-Q Element超纯水系统制备.3种纯度的硝酸选用Merck公司试剂纯硝酸、Fisher公司"TraceMetal"级和"Optima"级超纯硝酸.各种与样品直接接触的容器及相关工具、耗材主要选用Nalgene低密度聚乙烯和特氟隆材料制成的产品.酸洗程序是在四周时间内把样品瓶等依次浸泡在四遍不同浓度和纯度逐渐增加的硝酸溶液里进行清洗.除了第一遍酸洗是在室温下进行的以外,后三遍酸洗都是用加热板加热使硝酸溶液表面温度保持在45℃左右.用Finnigan MAT Element电感耦合等离子体质谱仪(ICP-MS)对该方法酸洗的样品瓶进行了空白检验,结果表明:所有测量的重金属元素的浓度都低于检测限.该方法对促进我国极地雪冰重金属研究具有重要意义,也可应用到其它环境介质中超痕量重金属分析.
A 109.91 m ice core was recovered from Dome A (or Dome Argus), the highest ice feature in Antarctica, during the 2004/05 austral summer by the 21st Chinese National Antarctic Research Expedition (CHINARE-21). Both methane profile along the core and firn densification model calculation suggest that the close-off depth is at about 102.0 m with an ice age about 4200 a. Stable isotopes (δ18O and δD) of the chips samples produced during each run of ice core drilling at Dome A, together with those of the other cores recovered from the eastern inland Antarctica, suggest a relative stable climate with a temperature fluctuation amplitude about ±0.6℃ at the eastern inland Antarctica during the late Holocene. The average d-excess (or d =δ D-8δ 18O) of 17.1‰ along the Dome A core is probably the highest among the Antarctic inland ice cores, which may be resulted from the kinetic fractionation during the snow formation under an oversaturation condition. Moreover, the increasing trend of d-excess during the late Holocene reflects mainly the migration of the water source area for precipitation at Dome A towards low latitudes. This paper presents the first results of a shallow ice core recovered from the unexplored highest area of the Antarctic ice sheet, providing a background for the proposing deep ice core drilling at Dome A.
