Mantle degassing of primordial helium through submarine ridge flank basaltic basement

Abstract

The degassing of primordial gases from Earth's interior is evidenced by the high He3/4He ratios in submarine hydrothermal plumes, vent fluids, and rock samples with mantle origin from active hydrothermal systems in mid-ocean ridges (MOR) and subduction zone volcanism. As the largest aquifer on Earth, the uppermost 40-500 m of permeable submarine ridge flank basement (1-65 million-years-old, Myr) holds ∼2% of the ocean volume and accounts for 70% of the seafloor hydrothermal heat flux. However, the degassing of primordial gases through the oceanic ridge flank crust has not yet been directly quantified. Here, we show that high integrity hydrothermal (65°C) fluids from the sediment-buried 3.5 Myr basaltic crust from the eastern flank of the Juan de Fuca Ridge (JdFR) contain elevated 3He. The He3/4He for the basaltic fluid is 4.5 ± 0.1 Ra (relative to the air ratio), which is greatly elevated when compared to deep seawater (1.05 Ra), but is half of that observed for high-temperature vent fluids (∼8 Ra) emitting from MOR. Only a small fraction of the 3He in ridge flank fluids is derived from the entrainment of high-temperature ridge-axis fluids and is better explained by degassing of the mantle through the mantle-crust boundary. The lower than MOR He3/4He ratios indicate that radiogenic 4He originates from aged uranium and thorium decay within the mantle as well as from the ridge-flank basalts. The 3He outgassing through warm ridge flanks (4.9 to 36 mol/yr) accounts for 0.7-6% of the global 3He outgassing, exceeded only by degassing through mid-ocean ridges and subduction volcanism. The presence of mantle 3He suggests that the abiogenic methane present in the ridge flank fluids might be mantle-derived. Based on the 3He outgassing flux, a possibly mantle-derived abiotic methane production rate at the ridge flank is estimated to be 0.3–35×108mol/yr.