INTRODUCTION

Volcanic processes are known to facilitate theoutgassing of some regions of the lithosphere ormantle of the Earth. It is not known, however, howmuch outgassing occurs in non-volcanic regions,either as a general diffusion through the ground, ora s s o c i ated with major fault lines and with earthquakes.Limits can of course be placed on the rates at which certaingases could be added to the atmosphere at the present time, orin geologic history, but such limits would admit the possibilityof a range of interesting effects. In particular, a set of phenomena that are now well recognized to be associatedwith earthquakes have no adequate explanations without theassumption that large quantities of high-pressure gas escapefrom the ground into the atmosphere at such times. Thesephenomena include sudden and surprisingly largechanges in ground conductivity preceding and duringearthquakes, even hundreds of kilometers from theepicenter; changes in ground water level; changes inthe ratio of compressional-to-shear wave velocities;sharp increases in the radon concentration in groundwater and in the atmosphere; and in the case of largeearthquakes, frequently the appearance of startlingluminous effects in the sky fanning out from thesurface.The radon phenomenon clearly implies thepresence of a carrier gas, and in adequate amountssuch a gas can account for all the other phenomena.Gases escaping from deep below and at very highpressures can pervade the porosity of the shallowerground, rapidly displace ground water, change thepressure in microcracks, and of course transport radonto the surface in a time short compared with its3.8 day radioactive half-life.No general studies of the possibility of earthquake-related gas emission seem to have beenundertaken, and there is little direct evidenceconcerning the chemical nature of such gases. Gasesthat are known to be associated with deeper layers of the Earth’s crust are CO

, CO, CH

, H

, N

, H

O andH

S, as major components, as well as small quantitiesof noble gases. It is the phenomenon of luminosity inthe air which gives the only direct clue, namely thatthe escaping gases generally are combustible.Although attempts have been made to discuss theluminosity effects in terms of electrical atmosphericphenomena, the high conductivity of the ground reallyrules out any such explanation. We have pursuedmany detailed eyewitness accounts of the luminosityphenomena, and these leave little doubt, as we shallsee, that we are concerned with the combustion of gases coming out of the ground. Methane, carbonmonoxide, hydrogen and hydrogen sulfide arecandidates, and some of those must be involved incombustible concentrations. We believe that ignitionof any combustible gases coming out of theground from a high-pressure source will alwaystend to occur through the frictional electricity of dust particles carried in the stream. Of thecombustible gases, we consider methane

Journal of Petroleum Geology, 1, 3, pp. 3-19, 1979

TERRESTRIALSOURCES OFCARBON ANDEARTHQUAKE OUTGASSINGThomas Gold*

The Earth has replenished its surface with carbon throughout geologic time. The supply may havecome from hydrocarbons originally included in the body and outgassing largely through faults in thecrust. Combustible gases are frequently released in earthquakes and seem to be an essential part of that phenomenon. New sources of fuel and improved earthquake prediction may come from a better understanding of the processes.

*Director, Center for Radiophysics and Space Research, Space Sciences Building, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York. 14853, U.S.A.

the one that is likely to be the most abundant, and inthe following discussion we concentrate attention on this;however, we recognize that any of the other combustiblegases may also be involved and that non-combustible gasesmay dilute the medium, but generally not to the extent of making combustion impossible.Continuous outgassing may have importantconsequences for tectonic processes. Thus, it has beenstressed by several investigators of seismic phenomena thatthe deeper earthquakes cannot be understood except with thehypothesis that a pore fluid is present and at a pressure of atleast the lithostatic value (Anderson and Whitcomb, 1975;Griggs and Handin, 1960; and Evison, 1963). Only then can ashear stress result in a sudden slippage along a surface;without such a pore fluid, the high rock pressure would causeshear stresses to be discharged by a gradual and distributeddeformation of the rock only. It does not appear to have beendiscussed what the rate of loss of such a pressurizedfluid would be, and how it is replenished.Since any such fluid—H

O, CO

, CO, CH

, N

—would always be lighter than rock, one has to suppose that infractured rock it will generally move upwards. Even withoutthe fractures caused by an earthquake, the tendency forupward migration must always be there, as soon as the porespaces interconnect over some distances, for then thepressure head in the fluid cannot be balanced everywhere bythe rock pressures. In particular, the upper zone of aninterconnected domain will generally have an excessive, andthe lower part an insufficient pressure to balance that of therock; the lower pores will thus tend to close and the upperones open, making for a general upward migration of thefluid. A downward transport of fluids, to make up any losses,can only occur with a subduction of a mass of rock. Thus, subducted sedimentary rocks may supply water, orC O

from the dissociation of limestone, or othercontained volatiles. But deep earthquakes occur inareas where there has been no large-scale subduction,and where such a source of fluids cannot be expected.If fluids are present there, a supply of volatiles in theprimeval material of the Earth must be suspected.A continuous (though by no means steady)o utgassing process may account for the ability of rocks tofracture suddenly, and discharge shear strain by slipping alonga surface, even at great depth (earthquake foci occur down to700 km). But several other features of earthquakes are nowknown that may well depend upon the supply of gases. Thus,the usual occurrence of aftershocks following majorearthquakes requires a time constant for a redistribution of stresses; but this cannot be found in plastic flow, since thiswould generally allow the gradual discharge of the strainin the first place. If pore fluid pressure is involved thepossibility suggests itself that after a major earthquake and thesubsequent escape of fluids through the cracked rocks, theremaining fluids will redistribute themselves with speedsdependent on the porosity. Subsequent shocks may representthe consequences of this gradual redistribution.The range of other earthquake-related phenomenathat have been identified (changes in the water table,escape of radon from the ground, changes in theseismic velocities, flaming and other pseudo-volcanicphenomena, and also the well-documented strangebehaviour of some animals preceding an earthquake) maywell all be caused by the gases from the deep ground. Firstly,there may be a slight leakage at the top as a gas mass makesits way upwards at some depth; and later, if an earthquakehas indeed been facilitated by this gas, there will bethe more violent effects of gas escaping through thenew cracks generated. The precursory effects willf r eque ntly involve no more than the slow displacement of the gases normally present in the porosity of the shallowground, but this may be a process that is readily perceived bythe sense organs of some animals (i.e. sense of smell of dogsand pigs, low frequency acoustical effects, asphyxiation forground-dwelling animals, etc.) .Much of the hydrocarbon supply of the Earth thatis at present being exploited shows strong evidence of biogenic origin. Petroleum deposits, and gases associated withsuch deposits must have derived, at least in part, frombiological materials. The evidence for this is strongest for theyoungest petroleum, but gets weaker for the oldest (Robinson,1966). Hydrocarbon gases unassociated with petroleum andcoming from depth carry no definitive information to identifytheir origin. Such non-associated natural gas is known inmany regions, and in exploitable quantities, where noready explanation for a biogenic source is at hand.Even in cases where hydrocarbon gases are associatedwith petroleum, it is not certain that they derived fromitor from a common biogenic source. It is also possible thatpetroleum reservoirs become augmented through absorbingand polymerizing hydrocarbon gases that enter the reservoirfrom below. The disposition of oilfields along major faultlines can perhaps be understood in that way, and also the factthat the older oils are generally the more hydrogen-rich. If, indeed, some outgassing of primeval materialsis taking place, one may suspect hydrocarbon gases tobe a component of these, since carbon in the earlysolar system was probably in hydrocarbonc o m p o u n ds to a major extent, and is still found

Thomas Gold

in that form in the most primitive meteorite material. Thus,terrestrial hydrocarbons may indeed have two different typesof origins, as suggested by Robinson.Information that combustible gases are a widespreadconstituent in the crust of the Earth cannot fail to be of interestfrom the point of view of the availability of natural fuels. Thequantities that may have escaped in this way and contributedto the carbon on the surface of the Earth in all of geologic timemay be very large when compared with fuel requirements.Thus, if primeval methane had been the chief source of carbon, the amount necessary to produce all the carbon in thesediments would be the equivalent of 20 million years of present-day fuel consumption. There is no clear indicationthat the outgassing of carbon has come to an end, and theamounts remaining in the Earth may still be very largecompared with any foreseeable human requirements. Nodoubt most of it is too deep and probably too diffuselydistributed to be accessible to exploitation; but even a verysmall fraction that may have become concentrated in thevicinity of faults and temporarily stored at a shallow depthmay still be a major item when compared with the quantitiesof the known fossil fuels. The detailed investigations of earthquakes and of many fault lines will therefore be of interest.

THE SOURCES OF TERRESTRIALCARBON

The derivation of all the carbon on the surface of theEarth and in the biosphere is not known with any certainty.The bulk of it is in the form of carbonates, chiefly CaCO

,whose derivation as an ocean precipitate is clear, withatmospheric CO

being the source material for the carbon.The two basic schemes that can be discussed are: (a) that allthe biospheric carbon came into the atmosphere early in thehistory of the Earth, that it was then quickly precipitatedchiefly as carbonates, and that these carbonates subsequentlywere reworked by erosion and by volcanic heating to producea continuous (but by no means constant) supply of CO

to theatmosphere ever since; or (b) that the source material for theatmospheric CO

has remained locked up in the body of theEarth, being released gradually at a slight but significant rate.The evidence of the deposits seems to favor the secondalternative. However, the method by which carbon from theinterior of the Earth slowly became concentrated on thesurface is still quite uncertain.If the meteorites are in any way representative of thematerials that contributed to the construction of the Earth, thenthere are two major possibilities: either the carbon wassupplied in comparatively high concentration as hydrocarboncompounds, as in the carbonaceous chondrites, and thenoutgassing from a comparatively small amount of suchmaterial and from shallow depths would suffice to producethe observed amounts; or the carbon was supplied in the formof carbonates, carbides and elemental carbon, as present inmany meteorites but in much smaller concentrations, and thenoutgassing from a volume approximating the entire mantle of the Earth would have been needed.Such extensive outgassing would have required an epochduring which the mantle of the Earth was largely molten. Onewould have expected that most outgassing would haveoccurred then, and very little after it solidified. Yet theevidence of the deposits of carbon seems to favor a muchmore continuous supply (Rubey, 1951).The case for an early complete outgassing, and asubsequent reworking of the sediments resulting from an early massive CO

atmosphere has been argued(Fanale, 1971). But there is no evidence for such largequantities of very early carbonate deposits, and theywould need to have been rather completely subductedto escape detection. Also, a massive CO

atmospherewould need to be coupled with a substantially weakerSun in order to avoid so high a temperature on theEarth that would preclude the deposition of carbonates. Still, these are possibilities that cannot beruled out—but there is no case here that is so strong thatthe alternative does not need to be considered. The atmospheric content of the noble gases has beenused to estimate what fraction of the Earth has beeno u t g a ssed. This is dependent upon the criticalassumption that the building material of the Earth wassimilar in its rare gas content to that of the smallsamples of apparently primitive material that present-day meteorites provide. If the Earth was constructedfrom material that had a more complex history, anda cc reted inhomogeneously, these considerations would not be applicable. Even using such assumptions, the range of meteorite rare gas concentrations (Wasson, 1969) wouldallow estimates ranging from 4% to 100% of the Earth havingbeen outgassed.Urey (1952) gave reasons for considering that theoriginal condition of carbon in the accretion of the Earth wasin the form of hydrocarbons, and many authors have sincefollowed this line of reasoning. Whether this implies that thesupply to the surface over geologic time was largely methane,or whether earlier processes had oxidized this, is not clear. Ineach case, CO

would be made available in the atmospherevery quickly, and provide the source material