The goals of the group

Carbon or CO2 Earth degassing is contributed by the combined action of two distinct source processes: a “point” source contribution from active volcanoes trough plumes and volcanic-hydrothermal areas (volcanic carbon flux), and a more regionally diffuse contribution from tectonically active areas and geothermal areas not related to active volcanism (non-volcanic CO2 flux or tectonic flux). The magnitude of both contributions is however still poorly constrained. These estimates are still affected by large uncertainties due to the limited amount of measured volcanic fluxes and the investigation of tectonic degassing. The reserach group, will try to elucidate and quantify tectonic carbon degassing, involved in the global carbon flux, through direct measurements, in opposite the current estimations. The group will: 1) detect geogenic carbon emissions in different geotectonic settings; 2) fingerprint the origin of the fluids, and determine the contribution between mantle and crustal processes; 3) quantify the amount of tectonic carbon released to the atmosphere in relationship with geological features and geodynamics models and 4) create a tectonic degassing model that can be extrapolated to other regions and also to deep time. These data would represent a ground-breaking contribution to the attempt to model better the carbon cycle, and to investigate the past and the present climate change.

Why it is important

The aims of the group advances our understanding of how volcanic and tectonic degassing interact in the subsurface, and how fluid behave in these two different systems. Our fundamental research has a number of future applications, like for example to combine both geochemical- and geophysicals data in active tectonic areas during seismic monitoring.