Deborah Bergfeld

Prodigious degassing of a billion years of accumulated radiogenic helium at Yellowstone

Helium is used as a critical tracer throughout the Earth sciences, where its relatively simple isotopic systematics is used to trace degassing from the mantle, to date groundwater and to time the rise of continents. The hydrothermal system at Yellowstone National Park is famous for its high helium-3/helium-4 isotope ratio, commonly cited as evidence for a deep mantle source for the Yellowstone hotspot. However, much of the helium emitted from this region is actually radiogenic helium-4 produced within the crust by α-decay of uranium and thorium. Here we show, by combining gas emission rates with chemistry and isotopic analyses, that crustal helium-4 emission rates from Yellowstone exceed (by orders of magnitude) any conceivable rate of generation within the crust. It seems that helium has accumulated for (at least) many hundreds of millions of years in Archaean (more than 2.5 billion years old) cratonic rocks beneath Yellowstone, only to be liberated over the past two million years by intense crustal metamorphism induced by the Yellowstone hotspot. Our results demonstrate the extremes in variability of crustal helium efflux on geologic timescales and imply crustal-scale open-system behaviour of helium in tectonically and magmatically active regions.

Tree-ring 14C links seismic swarm to CO2 spike at Yellowstone, USA

Mechanisms to explain swarms of shallow seismicity and inflation-deflation cycles at Yellowstone caldera (western United States) commonly invoke episodic escape of magma-derived brines or gases from the ductile zone, but no correlative changes in the surface efflux of magmatic constituents have ever been documented. Our analysis of individual growth rings in a tree core from the Mud Volcano thermal area within the caldera links a sharp ∼25% drop in 14 C to a local seismic swarm in 1978. The implied fivefold increase in CO 2 emissions clearly associates swarm seismicity with upflow of magma-derived fluid and shows that pulses of magmatic CO 2 can rapidly traverse the 5-km-thick brittle zone, even through Yellowstone9s enormous hydrothermal reservoir. The 1978 event predates annual deformation surveys, but recognized connections between subsequent seismic swarms and changes in deformation suggest that CO 2 might drive both processes.

Geochemical Data on Waters, gases, scales, and rocks from the Dixie Valley Region, Nevada (1996-1999)

This report tabulates an extensive geochemical database on waters, gases, scales, rocks, and hot-spring deposits from the Dixie Valley region, Nevada. The samples from which the data were obtained were collected and analyzed during 1996 to 1999. These data provide useful information for ongoing and future investigations on geothermal energy, volcanism, ore deposits, environmental issues, and groundwater quality in this region.

The Lassen hydrothermal system

Abstract The active Lassen hydrothermal system includes a central vapor-dominated zone or zones beneath the Lassen highlands underlain by ~240 °C high-chloride waters that discharge at lower elevations. It is the best-exposed and largest hydrothermal system in the Cascade Range, discharging 41 ± 10 kg/s of steam (~115 MW) and 23 ± 2 kg/s of high-chloride waters (~27 MW). The Lassen system accounts for a full 1/3 of the total high-temperature hydrothermal heat discharge in the U.S. Cascades (140/400 MW). Hydrothermal heat discharge of ~140 MW can be supported by crystallization and cooling of silicic magma at a rate of ~2400 km3/Ma, and the ongoing rates of heat and magmatic CO2 discharge are broadly consistent with a petrologic model for basalt-driven magmatic evolution. The clustering of observed seismicity at ~4–5 km depth may define zones of thermal cracking where the hydrothermal system mines heat from near-plastic rock. If so, the combined areal extent of the primary heat-transfer zones is ~5 km2, the average conductive heat flux over that area is >25 W/m2, and the conductive-boundary length <50 m. Observational records of hydrothermal discharge are likely too short to document long-term transients, whether they are intrinsic to the system or owe to various geologic events such as the eruption of Lassen Peak at 27 ka, deglaciation beginning ~18 ka, the eruptions of Chaos Crags at 1.1 ka, or the minor 1914-1917 eruption at the summit of Lassen Peak. However, there is a rich record of intermittent hydrothermal measurement over the past several decades and more-frequent measurement 2009-present. These data reveal sensitivity to climate and weather conditions, seasonal variability that owes to interaction with the shallow hydrologic system, and a transient 1.5-to twofold increase in high-chloride discharge in response to an earthquake swarm in mid-November 2014.

Aleutian Arc Fluid Geochemical Data

This report contains the chemical and isotopic data from thermal waters and gases collected from the Aleutian Arc over the past 20 years, where such data remain unpublished or only published in part.