The 1981 snowpack survey in the AOSERP study area

• Author(s) / Creator(s)

  • Murray, W. A.

• Snow samples were collected in the Athabasca Oil Sands region of northeastern Alberta in mid-January and late February 1981. The snow depth was measured and snow cores were taken at .60 sites around the oil sands plants. Snow sample collectors were set out at six of the sites in mid-January and removed in late February. Quantitative chemical analyses of the samples were carried out by a commercial laboratory. Duplicate samples from nine of the sites were analyzed as an independent cross-check. Concentrations of the major ions (SO4, NO3, Cl-, NH4, K+, H+, Na+, Mg++, ca++) as well as the insoluble (AI, Mn, Ti, V) and soluble (Al, Fe, Ni, V) constituents were determined. Snowpack loadings were computed from the measured concentrations, snowmelt volume, and the area sampled. The amounts of sulphate and nitrate deposited in the snow within 25 km of the oil sands plants have increased by 88 and 27% respectively, since the previous study in 1978. The amounts of insoluble particulates have decreased markedly

• Date created

  1981

• Subjects / Keywords

  • Oil Sands
  • AOSERP
  • Surveys
  • Chemistry
  • Oil sands
  • Tar Sands
  • Tar sands
  • Snow
  • Alberta
  • Canada, Alberta, Fort McMurray

• Type of Item

  Report

• DOI

  https://doi.org/10.7939/R3H41JQ66

• License

  This material is provided under educational reproduction permissions included in Alberta Environment and Sustainable Resource Development's Copyright and Disclosure Statement, see terms at http://www.environment.alberta.ca/copyright.html. This Statement requires the following identification: \"The source of the materials is Alberta Environment and Sustainable Resource Development http://www.environment.gov.ab.ca/. The use of these materials by the end user is done without any affiliation with or endorsement by the Government of Alberta. Reliance upon the end user's use of these materials is at the risk of the end user.