Abstract
Air containing ~100 ppm H2 gas is
venting about 8 hours a day from multiple locations on the periphery of
550m-diameter barren-of-vegetation depression in the Sao Francisco Basin
in Brazil. Atmospheric pressure tides modulate the hydrogen venting in
accordion fashion and explain the daily cycle. Modeling indicates that
for hydrogen concentrations to change as observed, a substantial,
permeable, subsurface reservoir must be tapped by fractures of limited
volume. The fractures must have 1/1000th the volume of
the accessed gas reservoir. For the phase of H2 venting
to match the phase of the atmospheric pressure changes, the subsurface
reservoir must be terminated by barriers such that the volume
decompressed is about 25% of that which could be decompressed. How
simple models can probe observations to obtain these conclusions will be
the subject of the presentation.