Continental degassing of He-4 by surficial discharge of deep groundwater
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Data
2015-01-01
Autores
Aggarwal, Pradeep K.
Matsumoto, Takuya
Sturchio, Neil C.
Chang, Hung K. [UNESP]
Gastmans, Didier [UNESP]
Araguas-Araguas, Luis J.
Jiang, Wei
Lu, Zheng-Tian
Mueller, Peter
Yokochi, Reika
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Nature Publishing Group
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Radiogenic He-4 is produced by the decay of uranium and thorium in the Earths mantle and crust. From here, it is degassed to the atmosphere(1-5) and eventually escapes to space(1,5,6). Assuming that all of the He-4 produced is degassed, about 70% of the total He-4 degassed from Earth comes from the continental crust(2,-5,7). However, the outgoing flux of crustal He-4 has not been directly measured at the Earths surface(2) and the migration pathways are poorly understood(2-4,7,8). Here we present measurements of helium isotopes and the long-lived cosmogenic radio-isotope Kr-81 in the deep, continental-scale Guarani aquifer in Brazil and show that crustal He-4 reaches the atmosphere primarily by the surficial discharge of deep groundwater. We estimate that He-4 in Guarani groundwater discharge accounts for about 20% of the assumed global flux from continental crust, and that other large aquifers may account for about 33%. Old groundwater ages suggest that He-4 in the Guarani aquifer accumulates over half- to one-million-year timescales. We conclude that He-4 degassing from the continents is regulated by groundwater discharge, rather than episodic tectonic events, and suggest that the assumed steady state between crustal production and degassing of He-4, and its resulting atmospheric residence time, should be re-examined.
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Nature Geoscience, v. 8, n. 1, p. 35-39, 2015.