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<front>
<journal-meta>
<journal-id journal-id-type="publisher">EGUsphere</journal-id>
<journal-title-group>
<journal-title>EGUsphere</journal-title>
<abbrev-journal-title abbrev-type="publisher">EGUsphere</abbrev-journal-title>
<abbrev-journal-title abbrev-type="nlm-ta">EGUsphere</abbrev-journal-title>
</journal-title-group>
<issn pub-type="epub"></issn>
<publisher><publisher-name>Copernicus Publications</publisher-name>
<publisher-loc>Göttingen, Germany</publisher-loc>
</publisher>
</journal-meta>
<article-meta>
<article-id pub-id-type="doi">10.5194/egusphere-2026-4574</article-id>
<title-group>
<article-title>Post-depositional Geochemical Transformations of Aerosol Impurities in EPICA Dome C Ice Core: Dissolution, Mineral Neoformation, and Immobilization Revealed by CFA-sp-ICP-TOFMS</article-title>
</title-group>
<contrib-group><contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Lee</surname>
<given-names>Geunwoo</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4336-3683</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Erhardt</surname>
<given-names>Tobias</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6683-6746</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff2">
<sup>2</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Larkman</surname>
<given-names>Piers</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5374-7349</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff3">
<sup>3</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Zeppenfeld</surname>
<given-names>Chantal</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6340-5836</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff4">
<sup>4</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Jackson</surname>
<given-names>Sarah</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4829-0687</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Schmitt</surname>
<given-names>Jochen</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4695-3029</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Delmonte</surname>
<given-names>Barbara</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff5">
<sup>5</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Baccolo</surname>
<given-names>Giovanni</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1246-8968</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff6">
<sup>6</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Ritz</surname>
<given-names>Catherine</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0785-8571</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff7">
<sup>7</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Wilhelms</surname>
<given-names>Frank</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7688-3135</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff3">
<sup>3</sup>
</xref>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff8">
<sup>8</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Dahl-Jensen</surname>
<given-names>Dorthe</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff4">
<sup>4</sup>
</xref>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff9">
<sup>9</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Nikolaus</surname>
<given-names>Kevin Michael</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff4">
<sup>4</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Bohleber</surname>
<given-names>Pascal</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff3">
<sup>3</sup>
</xref>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff10">
<sup>10</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Fischer</surname>
<given-names>Hubertus</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2787-4221</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
</contrib-group><aff id="aff1">
<label>1</label>
<addr-line>Climate and Environmental Physics, Physics Institute, &amp; Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research, University of Bern, Sidlerstrasse 5, CH-3012 Bern, Switzerland</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff2">
<label>2</label>
<addr-line>Institute of Geosciences and Frankfurt Isotope and Element Research Center (FIERCE), Goethe University Frankfurt, Altenhöferallee 1, 60438 Frankfurt am Main, Germany</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff3">
<label>3</label>
<addr-line>Alfred-Wegener-Institut Helmholtz-Zentrum für Polar- und Meeresforschung, Am Handelshafen 12, 27570 Bremerhaven, Germany</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff4">
<label>4</label>
<addr-line>Niel Bohr Institute, Physics of Ice, Climate and Earth, University of Copenhagen, Jagtvej 155 A, 2200 Copenhagen N, Denmark</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff5">
<label>5</label>
<addr-line>Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences (DISAT), &amp; EUROCOLD laboratory, University of Milano-Bicocca, Piazza della Scienza 1 e 4, 20126 Milano, Italy</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff6">
<label>6</label>
<addr-line>Science Department, Roma Tre University, Viale Marconi, 446, 00146 Roma RM, Italy</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff7">
<label>7</label>
<addr-line>Institute of Engineering, Univ. Grenoble Alpes, CNRS, IRD, Grenoble INP, IGE, 38000, Grenoble, France</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff8">
<label>8</label>
<addr-line>Georg-August-Universität, Geowissenschaftliches Zentrum, Geochemie und Isotopengeologie, Goldschmidtstr. 1–3, 37073 Göttingen, Germany</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff9">
<label>9</label>
<addr-line>Centre for Earth Observation Science (CEOS), Clayton H. Riddell Faculty of Environment, Earth and Resources, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, MB R3T 2N2, Canada</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff10">
<label>10</label>
<addr-line>Goethe University Frankfurt, Theodor-W.-Adorno-Platz 1, 60629 Frankfurt am Main, Germany</addr-line>
</aff>
<pub-date pub-type="epub">
<day>12</day>
<month>08</month>
<year>2026</year>
</pub-date>
<volume>2026</volume>
<fpage>1</fpage>
<lpage>43</lpage>
<permissions>
<copyright-statement>Copyright: &#x000a9; 2026 Geunwoo Lee et al.</copyright-statement>
<copyright-year>2026</copyright-year>
<license license-type="open-access">
<license-p>This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this licence, visit <ext-link ext-link-type="uri"  xlink:href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/</ext-link></license-p>
</license>
</permissions>
<self-uri xlink:href="https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-4574/">This article is available from https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-4574/</self-uri>
<self-uri xlink:href="https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-4574/egusphere-2026-4574.pdf">The full text article is available as a PDF file from https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-4574/egusphere-2026-4574.pdf</self-uri>
<abstract>
<p>Aerosol-derived impurities in deep Antarctic ice cores provide high-resolution records of past climate and atmospheric variability. However, post-depositional englacial geochemical processes driven by impurity remobilization through ice metamorphism can perturb the originally deposited signals, challenging the interpretation of deep ice records. To address this, we investigate englacial mineral alterations by analyzing the elemental composition of 18 ice-core sections of the EPICA Dome C (EDC) ice core (ranging from 281.6&amp;ndash;3137.1 m depth) using single-particle inductively coupled plasma time-of-flight mass spectrometry (sp-ICP-TOFMS) coupled to a continuous flow analysis (CFA) system. This reveals a deep-ice environment dominated by pervasive acid dissolution, leaving behind refractory mineral phases. We document the progressive neoformation of potassium-rich alunite-supergroup minerals (jarosite, alunite, and mixed phases) and the probable formation of Fe-(oxyhydr)oxide coatings. These secondary phases concurrently immobilize trace elements (iodine, arsenic, lead) via surface adsorption and structural substitution. These transformations occur within highly localized microenvironments and are accelerated by increasing in situ temperatures with depth. They are further enabled by the old age of deep ice, which provides hundreds of thousands of years for these reactions to occur. These findings underscore the importance of accounting for the effects of post-depositional geochemical transformation when interpreting impurity records from EDC and other old ice cores. The colder thermal regime of the Beyond EPICA Little Dome C is expected to lead to slower geochemical transformation, potentially providing a higher-fidelity impurity record for the epochs currently covered by EDC.</p>
</abstract>
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<funding-group>
<award-group id="gs1">
<funding-source>European Commission</funding-source>
<award-id>955750</award-id>
</award-group>
</funding-group>
</article-meta>
</front>
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