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- Title
Sub-surface precipitation of salts in supercritical seawater.
- Authors
Hovland, Martin; Kuznetsova, Tatyana; Rueslåtten, Håkon; Kvamme, Bjørn; Johnsen, Hans Konrad; Fladmark, Gunnar E.; Hebach, Andreas
- Abstract
Extremely low solubility of typical seawater salts within certain supercritical sections of their pressure–temperature composition space is a proven experimental fact. Its consequences are often referred to as either ‘shock crystallization’ or ‘out-salting’. Our alternative model for the formation of salt deposits hypothesizes that high temperatures and pressures characteristic for the high heat-flow zones of tectonically active basins may bring submarine brines into the out-salting regions and result in the accumulation of geological-scale salt depositions. To confirm the laboratory observations, molecular-scale simulations (molecular dynamics) have been employed to study structural changes in a model seawater system where temperature increased from ambient to near-critical and supercritical. Fluid properties and phase transition regions extracted from the simulations were then used as input parameters for a reservoir simulator program to model out-salting in a simple hydrothermal geological system. Both numerical simulations and laboratory experiments confirm that supercritical out-salting is a viable process of geological significance for the formation and accumulation of evaporites. We suggest two regions where hydrothermally associated salts may be depositing today: Atlantis II Deep, in the Red Sea, and Lake Asale, Ethiopia.
- Subjects
SEAWATER composition; SALT; SUPERCRITICAL fluids; SALT deposits; PRECIPITATION (Chemistry); MOLECULAR dynamics
- Publication
Basin Research, 2006, Vol 18, Issue 2, p221
- ISSN
0950-091X
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1111/j.1365-2117.2006.00290.x