A Record of Dissolved Metal Concentrations in the Lena River During the Period of Ice Breakup

The PARTNERS project is a 5-year research program (2002-2007) funded by the Arctic System Science Program of the U.S. National Science Foundation. The objective of the PARTNERS project is to measure several biogeochemical parameters in the six largest rivers that drain the watershed of the Arctic Ocean (Yenisey, Lena, Ob, Mackenzie, Yukon, and Kolyma) as a means to study the origins and fates of continental runoff. As part of the PARTNERS field program for 2004, samples were collected on the Lena River in the spring (May-June) during the period of peak discharge and ice breakup. Samples were collected from the bank at the town of Zhigansk (66.75 N, 23.38 E) once daily from May 28th through June 7th, 2004. The river was completely ice covered at the beginning of this period. The river level rose dramatically each day until ice breakup, which occurred on May 30th. Following breakup, the river level began to drop steadily. Visual observation of daily water samples indicated a darkening of the tannic brown color of the river water as discharge levels increased up until breakup, suggesting an increase in DOC concentrations associated with the peak discharge and ice breakup period. Water samples for metals analyses were syringe filtered in the field through 0.45 um polypropylene and 0.02 um Anotop filter discs and acidified under clean conditions upon return to the laboratory. The samples were analyzed by high-resolution ICPMS for a suite of metals including Ba, Cd, Ce, Co, Cr, Cs, Cu, Fe, Li, Mn, Mo, Ni, Pb, Rb, Re, Sr, Tl, U, V, and Zn. Here we report the results from these analyses as a daily time series of metal concentrations bracketing the ice breakup and peak discharge events. During this relatively short amount of time, significant fluctuations in metal concentrations were observed, which are likely related to concurrent fluctuations in DOC concentrations and other changes in river chemistry occurring during this dynamic period of the annual hydrologic cycle in the watershed.