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Continental degassing of helium in an active tectonic setting (northern Italy): the role of seismicity
- Source :
- Scientific Reports, Vol 10, Iss 1, Pp 1-13 (2020), Scientific Reports
- Publication Year :
- 2020
- Publisher :
- Springer Science and Business Media LLC, 2020.
-
Abstract
- In order to investigate the variability of helium degassing in continental regions, its release from rocks and emission into the atmosphere, here we studied the degassing of volatiles in a seismically active region of northern Italy (MwMAX = 6) at the Nirano-Regnano mud volcanic system. The emitted gases in the study area are CH4–dominated and it is the carrier for helium (He) transfer through the crust. Carbon and He isotopes unequivocally indicate that crustal-derived fluids dominate these systems. An high-resolution 3-dimensional reconstruction of the gas reservoirs feeding the observed gas emissions at the surface permits to estimate the amount of He stored in the natural reservoirs. Our study demonstrated that the in-situ production of 4He in the crust and a long-lasting diffusion through the crust are not the main processes that rule the He degassing in the region. Furthermore, we demonstrated that micro-fracturation due to the field of stress that generates the local seismicity increases the release of He from the rocks and can sustain the excess of He in the natural reservoirs respect to the steady-state diffusive degassing. These results prove that (1) the transport of volatiles through the crust can be episodic as function of rock deformation and seismicity and (2) He can be used to highlight changes in the stress field and related earthquakes.
- Subjects :
- Solid Earth sciences
Settore GEO/02 - Geologia Stratigrafica E Sedimentologica
010504 meteorology & atmospheric sciences
Settore GEO/03 - Geologia Strutturale
lcsh:Medicine
chemistry.chemical_element
Induced seismicity
010502 geochemistry & geophysics
01 natural sciences
Article
Atmosphere
Degassing
Diffusion (business)
lcsh:Science
Petrology
Helium
0105 earth and related environmental sciences
geography
Multidisciplinary
geography.geographical_feature_category
lcsh:R
Crust
Settore GEO/08 - Geochimica E Vulcanologia
Stress field
tectonic
Tectonics
Geochemistry
chemistry
Volcano
lcsh:Q
seismicity
Geology
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 20452322
- Volume :
- 10
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Scientific Reports
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....d864c802e8b45e3abc162fb4cbc86a52