Helium-3 Emission Related to Volcanic Activity
Abstract
The helium-3/helium-4 ratio in bubbling gases from ten hot springs located around Mount Ontake, an active volcano in central Japan, ranges from 1.71 Ratm (1.71 times the atmospheric ratio of 1.40 × 10-6) to 6.15 Ratm. The value of the ratio decreases with distance from the central cone of the volcano. Such a tendency may be a characteristic of helium-3 emission in volcanic areas and suggests more primitive helium-3 is carried with fluid flowing through a conduit during volcanic activity.
- Publication:
-
Science
- Pub Date:
- April 1984
- DOI:
- 10.1126/science.224.4645.150
- Bibcode:
- 1984Sci...224..150S
- Keywords:
-
- Effervescence;
- Emission;
- Gases;
- Geothermal Resources;
- Helium Isotopes;
- Volcanoes;
- Carbon Dioxide;
- Japan;
- Methane;
- Nitrogen;
- Geophysics