Abstract
Natural gas and oil fields, commercially exploited since the 1950s, are distributed in the zonal area facing the Sea of Japan in north-east Japan. We report here measurements of the 3He/4He ratios in 27 CH4-rich natural gases obtained from commercial oil and gas wells in the area. We observed extraordinarily high 3He/4He ratios, up to 8.65×10−6, in gases from wells drilled into deep reservoirs in volcaniclastic rock formations, the so-called ‘Green Tuff’ (Fig. 1). These values are almost identical to those of volcanic fumaroles in the Japanese Islands. In contrast, gases in shallower sedimentary rock reservoirs have low 3He/4He ratios with a minimum value of 0.3×10−6. These low values are similar to those of natural gases originating from biological materials. This suggests that the formation of natural gas reservoirs in the volcaniclastic rock may be attributed to large-scale magmatic activities which occurred in the middle Miocene.
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Wakita, H., Sano, Y. 3He/4He ratios in CH4-rich natural gases suggest magmatic origin. Nature 305, 792–794 (1983). https://doi.org/10.1038/305792a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/305792a0
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