Hydrogen from Radiolysis of Aqueous Fluid Inclusions during Diagenesis

John Parnell; Nigel Blamey

doi:10.3390/min7080130

Hydrogen from Radiolysis of Aqueous Fluid Inclusions during Diagenesis

John Parnell^* (Corresponding Author), Nigel Blamey

^*Corresponding author for this work

Geology and Geophysics

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

9 Citations (Scopus)

11 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

A suite of Permian sylvite samples from Boulby potash mine, Yorkshire, UK, consistently yield traces of hydrogen upon analysis by a cold crush technique for liberating volatiles from entrapped fluid inclusions. In contrast, accompanying halite samples do not yield hydrogen. These data suggest the formation of hydrogen by radiolysis of water due to irradiation from potassium in the sylvite. The data indicate radiolysis as a mechanism for subsurface hydrogen generation, where it is available as an electron donor for a deep biosphere.

Original language	English
Article number	130
Pages (from-to)	1-8
Number of pages	8
Journal	Minerals
Volume	7
Issue number	8
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.3390/min7080130
Publication status	Published - 25 Jul 2017

Bibliographical note

Acknowledgments
We are grateful to J. Bowie and J. Still for skilled technical support and the staff at ICL-UK’s Boulby mine (especially Thomas Edwards), STFC’s Boulby underground Laboratory and the UK Centre for Astrobiology MINAR programme team (especially Sean Paling) for their support and supervised access to the site. The critical comments of two reviewers helped to improve the manuscript.

Author Contributions
John Parnell undertook the sampling. Nigel Blamey performed all analytical work. John Parnell wrote the manuscript.

Keywords

Boulby mine
Deep biosphere
Fluid inclusions
Halite
Hydrogen
Radiolysis
Sylvite

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10.3390/min7080130Licence: CC BY

Hydrogen from Radiolysis of Aqueous Fluid Inclusions during Diagenesis
© 2017 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
Final published version, 1.83 MBLicence: CC BY

Cite this

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abstract = "A suite of Permian sylvite samples from Boulby potash mine, Yorkshire, UK, consistently yield traces of hydrogen upon analysis by a cold crush technique for liberating volatiles from entrapped fluid inclusions. In contrast, accompanying halite samples do not yield hydrogen. These data suggest the formation of hydrogen by radiolysis of water due to irradiation from potassium in the sylvite. The data indicate radiolysis as a mechanism for subsurface hydrogen generation, where it is available as an electron donor for a deep biosphere.",

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AB - A suite of Permian sylvite samples from Boulby potash mine, Yorkshire, UK, consistently yield traces of hydrogen upon analysis by a cold crush technique for liberating volatiles from entrapped fluid inclusions. In contrast, accompanying halite samples do not yield hydrogen. These data suggest the formation of hydrogen by radiolysis of water due to irradiation from potassium in the sylvite. The data indicate radiolysis as a mechanism for subsurface hydrogen generation, where it is available as an electron donor for a deep biosphere.

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Hydrogen from Radiolysis of Aqueous Fluid Inclusions during Diagenesis

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Keywords

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