Unraveling the sources of major, trace and rare earth elements in the waters of a high latitude proglacial environment: Weathering vs. atmospheric signature in Northern Patagonia

Abstract

Glaciers are important water reservoirs and are extremely sensitive to the effects of climate change. The Manso River basin, in Northwest Patagonia, Argentina, is a typical hydrological system with actively retreating glaciers. In this article, the proglacial environment was examined to assess the sources and the geochemical processes responsible for the chemical signatures of the following water subsystems: 1) clean glacial meltwaters (supraglacial influence, fed by “clean ice” glaciers); 2) dirty glacial meltwaters (subglacial influence, fed by “dirty ice” debris-covered glacier); and 3) proglacial runoff (river). Results indicated that clean glacial meltwaters present high dissolved immobile and nonmobile trace elements, derived from atmospheric input with an anthropogenic component in Pb, Cu, V, and Ni. Dissolved concentrations of Sr, Mn, Rb, and major ions are the result of carbonation and hydrolysis processes. The dirty glacial meltwater presents the highest dissolved load due to the highest water-rock interaction. The proglacial runoff presents intermediate physicochemical characteristics. At the site where the clean and dirty glacial meltwaters mix, the cation denudation rate is 2075 meq+ m−2 y−1. Downstream, geochemical inverse modeling indicates that the Manso Superior River system produces, by weathering reactions, a rate of dissolved load of 2.67 108 mol year−1, along with a CO2 sequestration of 2.05 108 mol year−1, denoting that proglacial environments are an important scenario in the CO2 cycle. The results of this work provide a baseline for future studies in proglacial environments and highlight the importance of assessing metal concentrations and mobilization within the Andean cryosphere.