NOBLE GASES IN MINERAL DEPOSITS AND HYDROTHERMAL FLUIDS

NOBLE GASES IN MINERAL DEPOSITS AND HYDROTHERMAL FLUIDS 

The conservative behavior and chemical inertness of noble gases has led to their extensive use to provide information on the fluxes, movement and interactions of contemporary crustal fluids. A major advance has been in extending these studies to characterize ancient waters in fluid inclusions (Turner et al. 1993). The principal aims of these studies are to provide data on the noble gas geochemistry of inclusion fluids and understand the observations in terms of likely sources and interactions. This information provides novel insight into a palaeofluid s evolutionary history and can assist in discriminating between different models for the formation of hydrothermal mineral deposits. Because of the large differences in end-member isotopic and elemental compositions, He and Ar are the most informative and widely studied noble gases in 

Reaction Approximate conversion element/product (mole/molef Approximate detection limit of parent element (g)  

The main difficulty with applying noble gas studies to ancient fluids has been  

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