The Noble Gases as Geochemical Tracers

390 Pages·2013·12.42 MB·English

by  Pete Burnard, Laurent Zimmermann, Yuji Sano (auth.), Pete Burnard (eds.)

Advances in Isotope Geochemistry
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Pete Burnard
Editor
The Noble Gases as
Geochemical Tracers
123
Editor
PeteBurnard
Centre National delaRecherche
Scientifique
Centre de Recherches Pétrographiques
etGéochemiques
Vandoeuvre-lès-Nancy
France
ISBN 978-3-642-28835-7 ISBN 978-3-642-28836-4 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-3-642-28836-4
SpringerHeidelbergNewYorkDordrechtLondon
LibraryofCongressControlNumber:2012952675
(cid:2)Springer-VerlagBerlinHeidelberg2013
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Preface
Thisbookrepresentsalandmarkintheapplicationofnoblegasestothe
Earthsciences.Whenyouturntothepageswithinyouwillseethatthis
uniquesetoftracershasnowmadethetransitionfromthedomainofa
fewspecialistlaboratoriestobecomeastandardpartofthegeochemists’
toolkit in tackling an array of both fundamental and applied science
problems.Although noble gases are usedextensivelyas adating tool in
geologicalandenvironmentalsystemsandarealsoextensivelystudiedin
cosmochemistry, each of which could fill a book alone, this volume
specifically focuses on how noble gases are used as tracers in terrestrial
systems. This is very much a nuts and bolts ‘how-to-do-it’ book and as
suchiscomplementarytorecentreviewsthattakeamoretheoreticaland
process-oriented approach. This refreshing approach provides essential
readingforunderstandingtheadvantages,state-of-the-artanalyses,and
current limits, of these tracers in the context of the different terrestrial
tracer applications, some of which are very recent. This is a ‘must’ first
port of call for those just starting in the field and will also be a critical
resource for those in the field who have been around a little longer and
who, like me, always have room tolearn and applynew bestpractice.
Itdoesnotseemsolongagowhen,asagraduatestudent,Iwas(and
remain)inaweofthescientistswhofirmlyestablishedthefieldofnoble
gas geochemistry; sitting in meetings with excitement as big egos chal-
lengedeachother,withnoquartergiven,ontheoriginsandevolutionof
the Earth and its atmosphere; and the slight clamminess of my hands
when I realised that I would have to defend my own work and ideas in
this arena. Some comfort and a degree of disbelief occurred when I
realisedhowlittlethenweactuallyknewabouttheverystructureofthe
deep Earth; and how few observations these early but fundamental
modelswerebasedon.Whenapplyingthenoblegasestomorepractical
matters I still pull out the 1961 paper by Zartmann, Wasserburg and
Reynolds, with the understated title of ‘Helium, argon and carbon in
somenaturalgases’thatdescribethefundamentalprinciplesbehindhow
we use noble gas isotopes today to understand multiphase crustal fluid
systems. Despite arriving a little later to the field, the sense of potential
for noble gases to contribute in a major and fundamental way to our
basic understanding of Earth formation and evolution as well as their
ability to interrogate and quantify the processes controlling so many
natural systems provided a buzz then that still remains today.
v
vi Preface
Fifty one years after Zartmann et al., this book captures the same
sense of excitement, but with half a century of additional community
experienceimprovingsamplecollection,analysisanddatainterpretation
ofthistracersuite.Centraltomanychaptersinthebookarethearrayof
techniques that we use to release the noble gases from solid samples.
While they might sound like extracts from a medieval torture chamber
handbook, with samples releasing their noble gas information through
being crushed, heated, melted or ablated, the exceptional care and
exactitudethatreducesblanksandmaximisessignalforeachapplication
are detailed here. Where samples are collected as free water, gas or oil,
whether from the depths of the ocean or from commercial oil and gas
boreholes, the system and component features required to collect, store
and preserve robust samples are presented in the respective chapters.
Each sample type also presents its own challenge in preparation before
analysis: removal of water, gas or oil from the vacuum system; cryo-
separation of the noble gases; low blanks; fast sample throughput—all
before the mass spectrometry. It is nevertheless the improvements in
mass spectrometry that form the foundation of the subject expansion
and the reason that noble gases are now a must-have tool in any Earth
or Environmental Science research institute of repute. Electronics
stability, source sensitivity, multiplier and amplification technology,
software control and data handling, magnet stability and speed, mass
resolution, multi-collection. Without these advances, achieving the
analyticalreproducibilityandprecisionneededforeachapplicationand
unlocking the detail of the processes controlling the natural systems
reviewed here would have been an impossibility.
The noble gases as tracers are still making a significant contribution
to a breadth of science problems that would surely amaze the early
subject pioneers. Their chemical inertness, sensitivity to radiogenic
noble gas input, fluid mixing and physical processing allow the identi-
ficationandquantificationofthephysicalenvironmenttobetractablein
a way not possible by any other technique. There is not a single tracer
set in our geochemistry armoury that is quite so powerful or broadly
useful — but perhaps I am writing with a small bias.
In showing how to win the data from the different natural systems,
thisvolumeprovidesanexcellentreviewofpreciselyhownoblegasesare
usedacrosstheapplicationlandscape.Thechaptersinthisvolumehave
beenarrangedlogicallyfromthehistoryoftheirdiscoveryandearlyuses
to the basics of sample preparation and mass spectrometry and detail
thenoblegasesintheterrestrialatmospherethatformthebasisformost
laboratory standards. These introductory chapters are followed by
global environmental applications that include reconstruction of the
past atmosphere and environment from ice cores, aquifers and lakes,
reconstruction of ocean circulation and nutrient input from ocean
watersandsedimentflux.Chaptersreviewhownoblegasesareappliedto
identifyinghydrocarbonreservesand,perhapsslightlyironically,alsoin
assessingthesafetyofburyingthecarbondioxideproducedbycombus-
tion of oil and natural gas for Man’s energy needs. The book starts to
Preface vii
concludewithchaptersthatshowhowmodernandancienthydrothermal
systemscanbeunderstood.Thegreatestofsciencechallengestackledby
noble gases is left to the last chapter on tracing the evolution of the
terrestrialmantle,whicharguablyprovidedtheexperienceandexpertise
thatspunoutmanyoftheotherapplicationsdetailed.Thedescriptionof
howthestudyofnoblegasesinmantlematerialshaverevolutionisedour
understandingofthenatureandoriginofvolatilesintheEarthandhow
theEarth’smantlehasevolvedthroughtimeiscertainlyacontribution,
from many, to the basic understanding of our planet that the noble gas
communitycanbeproudof.
Prof. Chris Ballentine
The University of Manchester
Contents
The Noble Gases as Geochemical Tracers:
History and Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Pete Burnard, Laurent Zimmermann and Yuji Sano
Noble Gases in the Atmosphere. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Yuji Sano, Bernard Marty and Pete Burnard
Noble Gases in Ice Cores: Indicators of the Earth’s
Climate History. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
Gisela Winckler and Jeffrey P. Severinghaus
Noble Gases in Seawater as Tracers for Physical
and Biogeochemical Ocean Processes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
Rachel H. R. Stanley and William J. Jenkins
Noble Gas Thermometry in Groundwater Hydrology. . . . . . . . 81
Werner Aeschbach-Hertig and D. Kip Solomon
Noble Gases as Environmental Tracers in Sediment
Porewaters and Stalagmite Fluid Inclusions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
M. S. Brennwald, N. Vogel, Y. Scheidegger, Y. Tomonaga,
D. M. Livingstone and R. Kipfer
Extraterrestrial He in Sediments: From Recorder of Asteroid
Collisions to Timekeeper of Global Environmental Changes. . . 155
David McGee and Sujoy Mukhopadhyay
Application of Noble Gases to the Viability of CO Storage . . . 177
2
Greg Holland and Stuart Gilfillan
Noble Gases in Oil and Gas Accumulations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225
Alain Prinzhofer
The Analysis and Interpretation of Noble Gases
in Modern Hydrothermal Systems. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249
Yuji Sano and Tobias P. Fischer
ix
x Contents
Noble Gases and Halogens in Fluid Inclusions:
A Journey Through the Earth’s Crust. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 319
Mark A. Kendrick and Pete Burnard
Noble Gases as Tracers of Mantle Processes
and Magmatic Degassing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 371
M. A. Moreira and M. D. Kurz
The Noble Gases as Geochemical
Tracers: History and Background
Pete Burnard, Laurent Zimmermann and Yuji Sano
Abstract
This chapter describes the discovery of the noble gases and the
development of the first instrumentation used for noble gas isotopic
analysis before outlining in very general terms how noble gases are
analysed in most modern laboratories. Most modern mass spectrometers
use electron impact sources and magnetic sector mass filters with
detection by faraday cups and electron multipliers. Some of the
performance characteristics typical of these instruments are described
(sensitivity, mass discrimination). Extraction of noble gases from
geological samples is for the most part achieved by phase separation,
by thermal extraction (furnace) or by crushing in vacuo. The extracted
gasesneedtobepurifiedandseparatedbyacombinationofchemicaland
physical methods. The principles behind different approaches to
calibrating the mass spectrometers are discussed.
1 Introduction extensive chemistry (Grochala 2007), this is typ-
ically only with highly electronegative elements
Occupying the last column of the Periodic Table such as F and O, which in natural terrestrial sys-
and therefore characterized by a filled outer temsarealreadyboundtomorereactiveelements
valenceshell,thenoblegasesdonotformchem- than the noble gases. The noble gases and their
ical compounds at conditions relevant to natural isotopesareabletoprovideuniqueconstraintson
processes on Earth: while Kr and Xe do have an certain geological processes owing to their inert
behaviorandbecausenumerousnuclearreactions
are recorded in the noble gas isotopic composi-
tions.Whilemanyoftheseapplicationsarerelated
P.Burnard(&)(cid:2)L.Zimmermann
to constraining the duration of geologic events
CentredeRecherchesPétrographiqueset
Géochimiques,BP20Vandoeuvre-lès-NancyCedex, (thermochronology, absolute dating, surface
France exposuredatingetc.),thisvolumeaimstodescribe
e-mail:[email protected]
samplingstrategies,analyticalmethodologiesand
Y.Sano data interpretation for the use of noble gases as
CenterforAdvancedMarineResearch,Ocean tracersintheEarthSciences:tracersofgeological
ResearchInstitute,TheUniversityofTokyo,
fluids, of mantle circulation, of seawater
Nakano,Tokyo164–8639,Japan
P.Burnard(ed.),TheNobleGasesasGeochemicalTracers,AdvancesinIsotopeGeochemistry, 1
DOI:10.1007/978-3-642-28836-4_1,(cid:2)Springer-VerlagBerlinHeidelberg2013
2 P.Burnardetal.
circulation, of dust falling from space, of hydro- separate 20Ne from 22Ne. This development
carbon reserves, of past climate change and of openedthefloodgatesforresearch intoisotopes,
potentialfutureCO storageincrustalreservoirs. and 10 years later multiple isotopes of all the
2
noble gases except for 3He had been identified
1.1 History (despiteahiatusforcedbytheFirstWorldWar),
forthemostpartbyDempsterattheUniversityof
Thediscoveryofthenoblegaseswasinitiallyby Chicago: Dempster’s 1918 mass spectrometer
inference rather than isolation. Helium was first (Dempster1918)laiddown theblueprint forthe
identified as an element simply from its absorp- magneticfieldfiltersusedinmassspectrometers
tion spectrum in the solar chromosphere (by tothisday.Helium-3wasonlyidentifiedin1939
Lockyer in 1868; it would be another 27 years by cyclotron mass spectrometry at Lawrence
before it was actually isolated as an element). Berkely Nat. Labs, CA, by Alvarez and Cornog
Similarly,thepresenceofanunknowngasoflow (1939), who used the 60-in. cyclotron as a mass
density (which later turned out to be Ar) in the spectrographtoshowthat3Heisastableisotopic
atmosphere was proposed by Rayleigh in 1895 constituent of natural helium. The 3He2+ ions
becausenitrogenfromdistilledairhadadifferent weredetectedusingthenuclearreaction28Si(3He,
density to chemically produced nitrogen. This p)30P(b)30Siandtheradio-activityof30Pquanti-
observation lead to more refined distillation fied by a Geiger counter. The activity of pure
experimentsbyRamsay(1898)whichpositively atmosphericheliumwas12timeshigherthanthat
identified Ar as an element and also led to the of tank helium derived from a natural gas well.
isolationofKr,NeandXe(forwhichRamseyand They concluded that the 3He/4He ratio of air
RayleighwouldreceiveNoblePrizes). heliumisabout10timesgreaterthanthatofnat-
Thediscoverythatanalphaparticleproduced uralgashelium.
by decay of U was in fact a helium nucleus (by The advances in mass spectrometry resulting
accumulatingaparticlesinanevacuatedtubeby fromtheManhattanProject(1942–1946)opened
recoilthroughathinwindow)allowedRutherford up opportunities in geo-and cosmochemistry in
andStrutttomakethefirstradiometricagemea- thepostwaryears.Attheforefrontofmassspec
surementsin1905:byheatingvariousU-bearing developmentduringtheManhattanproject,Nier,
mineralsandweighingtheHethatwasproduced, now in Minnesota, returned to the geochronol-
theywereabletoconstraintheageoftheearthto ogy and geochemistry he started in the pre-war
be greater than 400 Ma. Rutherford and Strutt years as a grad student at Harvard. Seminal
were well aware of the problem of potential He papersonK-Ardating(AldrichandNier1948a)
loss from minerals on geological timescales and and on the He isotopic composition of the
socorrectlyconsideredthe400 Maestimatetobe atmosphere(Dauntetal.1947)resultedfromthe
aminimumestimate;butevenso,thiswasamajor impressive 15 cm radius, 60(cid:3) mass spectrome-
advanceaspreviousestimatesconsideredthatthe ters and electron impact ion sources that Nier
maximum age of the Earth was of the order built at that time. These machines were capable
20 Ma.However,asaresultoftheHelossprob- of separating 3He ? from HD+ to HHH+ inter-
lemtheU+Th/Heradiochronometerwaslargely ferences. Nier and his co-workers discovered
ignored until the beginningof the 1990swhena large variations in 3He/4He ratios of natural
betterunderstandingofthekineticsofHelossin materials: Aldrich and Nier presciently stated in
certain U bearing minerals ushered in the possi- their 1948 paper (Aldrich and Nier 1948b) that
bility of quantitative U+Th/He thermochronom- ‘‘The present study can hardly be regarded as
etry(Farley2002). more than a preliminary exploration of a new
Noblegaseswerecentraltounderstandingthe and fascinating field of investigation. It is
structureoftheatom,andthefirstisotopicsepa- apparent that a far more comprehensive and
ration—using the first mass spectrometer—was systematic study will be required to definitely
madebyJJThomsonandF.W.Astonin1913to establish the natural source of 3He and 4He.’’