The Antarctic ice sheet receives atmospheric deposition continuously in long periods and over large areas, vertical records of chemical deposition in an ice core could provide not only important information about climate change and changes in chemical compounds during the past tens of thousands of years, but also change information about material source area and the transmission intensity.  

The edge of the Antarctic ice sheet is surrounded by the vast ocean. Therefore, the marine chemical is an important factor to the deposition in the Antarctic ice sheet. 

The marine deposition in different regions could provide many kinds of physical parameters which effect the chemical deposition, such as the distance from ocean, elevation, accumulation rate and slope angle.  

Scientist with Cold and Arid Regions Environmental and Engineering Research Institute (CAREERI) found that the elevation and distance from the ocean are two important factors to the sediment concentration of sea salt ions in the interior of Antarctic. 

The research shows that concentrations of Na⁺ and Cl^- in the Eastern Antarctic ice sheet decreased exponentially with distance from the coast to 100 km inland. Statistical results demonstrate that distance from the coast to inland affects the concentration of sea-salt originated ions in inland areas significantly.Nevertheless, there is  probably other factors effect the ion concentration. 

Concentrations of Na⁺ and Cl^- from the nine sampling sites in the Grove Mountain area are relatively higher than those from sites along CHINARE transect, although all sites are at similar distance inland. 

This phenomenon indicates that the barrier effect of the mountain may be the most important factor influencing ion deposition. In addition, nss-SO₄^2- and MSA vary differently, with nss-SO₄^2- decreasing with distance more significantly. 

This implies that sources and transporting pathways influence the deposition of the two sulfur compounds considerably, being supported by the spatial pattern of correlation coefficients between the nss-SO₄^2- and MSA. 

Research results were published in Journal of Science China: Earth Sciences (doi: 10.1007/s11430-014-4907-3). The paper can be seen  "http://earth.scichina.com:8080/sciDe/EN/Y2014/V57/I10/2366".