THE YELLOW-SNOW EPISODE OF NORTHERN FENNOSCANDIA, MARCH-1991 - A CASE-STUDY OF LONG-DISTANCE TRANSPORT OF SOIL, POLLEN AND STABLE ORGANIC-COMPOUNDS

The present paper describes a vast dustfall with snow in northern Fennoscandia, 10 March 1991. The area affected by dust deposition was at least 320,000 km(2). and the particulate mass received amounted to between 50 and 200 mg m(-2). The total amounts of dust deposited in the investigated area sum up to approximately 50,000 tonnes. The dust consisted of soil particles, i.e. single mineral grains and loose ferric aggregates of mineral grains in addition to pollen and spores. Mineralogically, the dust was dominated by small rounded quartz grains. Median size of the dust particles was 2.72 mu m. The total pollen concentration varied from 327 to 1172 pollen cm(-2). The pollen types identified were divided in ''Nordic/Central European'' taxa and ''Exotic'' taxa. Pollen from the former group, e.g. Betula, Alnus and Corylus were believed to originate in the Alps and in the northern parts of Central Europe where these species were flowering. The latter category was considered to originate in more remote areas, many of them belonging to the taxa growing only around the Mediterranean. From a paleo-ecological point of view, long-distance transport such as this would count for an important potential source of error whenever interpreting Holocene pollen diagrams. The content of stable organic compounds showed that the dust was relatively clean, compared to other episodes, when the dust deposited had originated in heavily polluted regions. The small amounts of chlorinated hydrocarbons, polychlorinated biphenyles (PCB), polyaromated hydrocarbons (PAH) and other hydrocarbons found, are believed to have been adsorbed by the particle surfaces during transportation. The results of the study, along with meteorological data, lead to the conclusion that the material originated in North Africa. Dust mobilization was reported in Tunisia as well as in Algeria. This means that the dust was transported at least 7000 km before deposition.