| Issue |
E3S Web Conf.
Volume 98, 2019
16th International Symposium on Water-Rock Interaction (WRI-16) and 13th International Symposium on Applied Isotope Geochemistry (1st IAGC International Conference)
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|---|---|---|
| Article Number | 01040 | |
| Number of page(s) | 5 | |
| Section | Geological Evolution of Water-Rock System: Mechanisms, Processes, Factors, Stages. The Session Dedicated to Stepan Shvartsev’s Memory | |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1051/e3sconf/20199801040 | |
| Published online | 07 June 2019 | |
Noble gas geochemistry and chronology of groundwater in an active rift basin in central China
1
Key Laboratory of Shale Gas and Geoengineering, Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 100029, Beijing, China
2
Institute of Earth Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 100029, Beijing, China
3
University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, 100049, Beijing, China
* Corresponding author: z.pang@mail.iggcas.an.cn
Stable noble gas isotopes are excellent groundwater tracers. Radioactive noble gases are emerging new tools in the study of groundwater circulation dynamics. Among these, the 85Kr and 81Kr, and 39Ar have advanced very fast in recent years and exhibit strong potential in the reconstruction of the history of groundwater recharge and evolution in sedimentary basins at different scales. Here, we report the findings in groundwater circulation dynamics as relative to intensive water-rock interactions, heat transfer and He gas flux in Guanzhong Basin located in Xi’an, the geographical centre of China, which is a rift basin created by collision between the Eurasia and Indian plates, with active neotectonic activities. The recent technological breakthrough in noble gas isotope measurements, i.e. the atomic trap trace analysis (ATTA) techniques on Kr and Ar gas radionuclei, has revolutionized groundwater dating. Noble gas samples from shallow and deep wells to 3000 m depth have been collected to study isotope variations to reconstruct the history of groundwater recharge and understand the water-rock interaction processes. Stable isotopes of water show strong water-rock interaction in the formation, creating a strong positive O-isotope shift up to 10 ‰, a phenomenon that is rarely seen in a fairly low temperature environment. Analysis of 85Kr and 81Kr show groundwater ages up to 1.3 million years old along both North-South and a West-East cross sections, which offers strong evidence about the slow moving flow, strong water-rock interaction, rich geothermal resources as well as He gas resources.
© The Authors, published by EDP Sciences, 2019
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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