nakazawa_2005.htm
Bulletin of Glaciological Research 22 (2005)
69-74
©Japanese Society of Snow and Ice
Determination of amino acids in ice samples
Fumio NAKAZAWA1, Keiichi OHTA2, Naomi HARADA3. Koji FUJITA4
and Masayoshi NAKAWO5
1 Graduate School of Science, Nagoya University,
Furo-cho, Chikusa-ku, Nagoya 464-8601, Japan
2 Department of Ecosystem Studies, School
of Environmental Science, University of Shiga
Prefecture, 2500 Hassaka-cho, Hikone,
Shiga Pref. 522-8533, Japan
3 Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and
Technology, 2-15 Natsushima-Cho, Yokosuka-City,
Kanagawa 236-0061, Japan
4 Graduate School of Environmental Studies,
Nagoya University, Furo-cho, Chikusa-ku,
Nagoya 464-8601, Japan
5 Research Institute for Humanity and Nature,
335 Takashima-cho, Marutamachi-dori Kawaramachi
nishi-iru, Kamigyo-ku, Kyoto
602-0878, Japan
Abstract
This study investigates amino acid concentrations and compositions in ice as a preliminary approach for applying amino acid analysis to ice core study. For the amino acid analysis, 0.425 to 0.750 kg ice samples are used. The ices from Antarctica have 16.8 and 18.3 nmol kg-1 of amino acids and these concentrations are close to laboratory blank levels, while the ice from the Chongce Ice Cap in China has IGOnmol kg-1 of amino acids. Therefore, the analysis for Antarctic ice is estimated to need more than several kg of ice. In contrast, the analysis from the Chongce Ice Cap should be reducible to only several hundred grams of ice because the concentrations in this cap are higher than those in Antarctica. Further, amino acid sources are present in glacier surroundings of temperate regions, whereas polar regions are far from sources. Serine, aspartic acid and alanine are the major components in the samples. However, the amino acid compositions show variation with each sample.
