Chemical characterisation of rainwater at Stromboli Island (Italy): The effect of post-depositional processes

Abstract

Volcanoes emit fluids and solid particles into the atmosphere that modify the chemical composition of natural precipitation. We have investigated the geochemistry of Stromboli's rainfall during the period from November 2014 to March 2016 using a network of a new type of sampler specifically designed for operations on volcanic islands.Wefound thatmost of the chemicalmodifications are due to processes occurring after the storage of rainwater in the sampling bottles. These processes include dissolution of volcanogenic soluble salts encrusting volcanic ash and a variable contribution of sea spray aerosol. Our data showed noticeably less scatter than has previously been achieved with a different sampling systemthat wasmore open to the atmosphere. This demonstrates the improved efficacy of the new sampler design. The data showed that post-depositional chemical alteration of rain samples dominates over processes occurring during droplet formation ad precipitation. This has important implications for the calculation of fluxes of chemicals from rainfall in volcanic regions.