"Follow the Water": Controls on the Distribution and Preservation of Habitability from Water-Rock Interactions in the Earth's Deep Crust

“追随水流”：地壳深处水-岩相互作用对宜居性分布和保存的控制

• 批准号: RGPIN-2018-06149
• 负责人: SherwoodLollar, Barbara
• 金额: $ 6.85万
• 依托单位: University of Toronto
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Discovery Grants Program - Individual
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2022-01-01 至 2023-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=751230
• 关键词: Follow; Water; Controls; Distribution; Preservation

Summary of Proposal Our understanding of the Earth, as scientists, engineers, policy makers and public citizens, can inadvertently be constrained by the fact that human life is just a thin veneer on the surface of the Blue Planet. Fundamental challenges remain concerning the complexities of chemical, physical (and biological) interactions in the Earth's subsurface - in particular the nature of subsurface water the Earth's Deep Hydrosphere. For instance, geochemists have long relied on fluid inclusions - microscopic time capsules of fluid and gas encased in host rocks and fracture minerals - to access preserved samples of ore-forming fluids, metamorphic fluids, and remnants of the ancient atmosphere and hydrosphere. Until recently, macroscopic (flowing) groundwaters were thought to reflect only much younger periods of water-rock reaction and Earth history, due to dilution with large volumes of younger fluids recharging from surface. Over the past 6 years we have explored and expanded our understanding of the depth, distribution, storage and residence time of groundwaters in the Precambrian crust that constitutes > 70% of the Earth's continental lithosphere accessed by our team via working mines, and underground research laboratories worldwide. Our discovery of groundwaters that preserve components that are millions and even > a billion of years old provides the opportunity for new suites of samples for understanding the evolution of the Earth's hydrosphere and atmosphere, challenges our understanding of the habitability of Earth, and informs our thinking about possible groundwater and habitability beneath Mars, and on the icy planets and moons elsewhere in the solar system. As an isotope geochemist and hydrogeologist, my leadership and core contributions to this program are to provide insight, interpretation and critical constraints from the geochemistry and isotopic signatures (using both reactive CHO elements that record the history of chemical and biologically-mediated reactions; and conservative noble gases that identify origin and mixing of components of different provenance) for the fluids and gases that define the hydrogeology and habitability of the deep Earth. In addition to advancing fundamental understanding for NSE, and capturing public imagination about the deep Earth, this research has important practical implications - potentially providing information about ore-forming processes, providing new technology transfer re understanding the degree of isolation of deep subsurface fluids (pertinent to proposed nuclear waste disposal, and carbon capture and storage projects); and providing novel detailed information about the nature of highly saline deep subsurface fluids and gases that will be encountered as humans explore and investigate the deep continental lithosphere. Such a program is well suited to the GeoSciences EG 1506's broad expertise.

提议的总结，作为科学家，工程师，政策制定者和公民，我们对地球的理解可能会因人类生活只是蓝色星球表面的薄贴面而无意中的束缚。关于地球地下的化学，物理（和生物学）相互作用的复杂性，尤其是地下水的性质，地球水的深度水圈的性质仍然存在着基本挑战。例如，地球化学主义者长期以来一直依赖流体夹杂物 - 在宿主岩石和骨折矿物质中包裹的流体和气体的微观时光胶囊 - 以获取保留的矿石形成液，变质流体的样品，以及古代大气和水磷的残余物。直到最近，宏观（流动的）地下水被认为仅反映了年轻的水摇滚反应和地球历史，这是由于稀释的，大量的年轻流体从表面充电。在过去的6年中全世界。我们发现的地下水保留了数百万甚至>十亿年历史的零件，为新样本提供了理解地球氢层和气氛发展的新套件的机会关于火星下的地下水和可居住性，以及太阳系其他地方的冰冷的行星和卫星。作为一名同位素地球化学家和水理学家，我对该计划的领导和核心贡献是从地球化学和同位素签名中提供洞察力，解释和批判性约束（使用记录化学和生物学介导的反应史的反应性CHO元素；以及保守的反应；以及保守的；鉴定出不同来源的组成部分的贵重气体），以定义深层地球的水文地质和宜居性的流体和气体。除了促进对NSE的基本理解并捕捉对深层地球的公众想象的基本理解外，这项研究还具有重要的实际含义 - 潜在地提供有关矿石形成过程的信息，提供新的技术转移，了解深度隔离的深度地下流体的程度（相关的地下流体（相关）提议核废料处置以及碳捕获和存储项目）；并提供有关高盐水深度地下液和气体的性质的新颖详细信息，这些信息将在人类探索和研究深层岩石圈时遇到。这样的计划非常适合地球科学，例如1506年的广泛专业知识。