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Deep fracture fluids isolated in the crust since the Precambrian era

Nature volume 497, pages 357–360 (2013)Cite this article

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Abstract

Fluids trapped as inclusions within minerals can be billions of years old and preserve a record of the fluid chemistry and environment at the time of mineralization1,2,3. Aqueous fluids that have had a similar residence time at mineral interfaces and in fractures (fracture fluids) have not been previously identified. Expulsion of fracture fluids from basement systems with low connectivity occurs through deformation and fracturing of the brittle crust4. The fractal nature of this process must, at some scale, preserve pockets of interconnected fluid from the earliest crustal history. In one such system, 2.8 kilometres below the surface in a South African gold mine, extant chemoautotrophic microbes have been identified in fluids isolated from the photosphere on timescales of tens of millions of years5. Deep fracture fluids with similar chemistry have been found in a mine in the Timmins, Ontario, area of the Canadian Precambrian Shield. Here we show that excesses of 124Xe, 126Xe and 128Xe in the Timmins mine fluids can be linked to xenon isotope changes in the ancient atmosphere2 and used to calculate a minimum mean residence time for this fluid of about 1.5 billion years. Further evidence of an ancient fluid system is found in 129Xe excesses that, owing to the absence of any identifiable mantle input, are probably sourced in sediments and extracted by fluid migration processes operating during or shortly after mineralization at around 2.64 billion years ago. We also provide closed-system radiogenic noble-gas (4He, 21Ne, 40Ar, 136Xe) residence times. Together, the different noble gases show that ancient pockets of water can survive the crustal fracturing process and remain in the crust for billions of years.

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Figure 1: Comparison of the Neon isotopic composition of free fluids and fluid inclusions in ancient crust.
Figure 2: Xenon isotopic spectrum.
Figure 3: The xenon isotopic evolution of Earth’s atmosphere shown over time2, relative to modern atmosphere.

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Acknowledgements

We thank S. Shirey for discussion on the geological history of the study areas and P. Burnard for a review. This work was funded by NSERC Discovery and CRC grants to B.S.L., a UK-NERC grant to C.J.B. and Deep Carbon Observatory support to C.J.B. and B.S.L. We are indebted to P. Calloway, P. Jurenovski, A. Marcotte and L. Kieser for assistance in sample collection.

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Author notes

  1. L. Li

    Present address: Present address: Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, University of Alberta, Edmonton T6G 2E3, Canada.,

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Earth, Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences, Manchester University, Manchester M13 9PL, UK,

    G. Holland & C. J. Ballentine

  2. Lancaster Environment Centre, Lancaster University, Lancaster LA1 4YQ, UK,

    G. Holland

  3. Department of Earth Sciences, University of Toronto, Ontario, M5S 3B1, Canada,

    B. Sherwood Lollar, L. Li & G. Lacrampe-Couloume

  4. School of Geography and Geology, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario L8S 4K1, Canada,

    G. F. Slater

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Contributions

G.H., B.S.L. and C.J.B. designed the project, interpreted the data and wrote the paper. G.H. analysed the samples. G.F.S. and L.L. collected the field samples. G.F.S., L.L. and G.L.-C. characterized the gas and water samples and provided critical comment and input on the manuscript.

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Correspondence to C. J. Ballentine.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

This file contains Supplementary Tables 1-3, Supplementary Figure 1 and additional references. (PDF 302 kb)

Exploration boreholes in the mine face at 2.4 km depth release fluids from fracture network fluids

Boreholes drilled to probe the direction of the ore producing seams can intersect a network of fractures containing fluid. Shown here is the mine face at 2.4 km depth at which multiple boreholes can be seen. Several of these boreholes are producing copious amounts of fluid. ‘Down’ is to the left. Boreholes are approximately 3.2cm in diameter. (AVI 26733 kb)

Free gas and fracture water flowing from boreholes via sampling device

A packer is placed into the opening of the exploration boreholes and fluid produced from the borehole flows at natural pressures and rates into a sampling device (shown here). A valve at the bottom of the device allows sampling of the fracture fluid, while a valve at the top (once purged of any air contamination) allows sampling of the pure gas phase form the borehole. The flow rate of each phase is determined (methods) and a sample of the different phases flowed through copper tubes for collection and analysis. The Perspex sampling vessel is approximately 0.5m in height and 10 cm in diameter. (WMV 8655 kb)

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Holland, G., Lollar, B., Li, L. et al. Deep fracture fluids isolated in the crust since the Precambrian era. Nature 497, 357–360 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature12127

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