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Quantification of Natural CO 2 Emission Through Faults and Fracture Zones in Coal Basins
Author(s) -
Ma Y.,
Kong X.Z.,
Zhang C.,
Scheuermann A.,
Bringemeier D.,
Li L.
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1029/2021gl092693
Subject(s) - coal , geology , fault (geology) , drilling , greenhouse gas , soil gas , natural gas , coal mining , atmosphere (unit) , sampling (signal processing) , flux (metallurgy) , petrology , seismology , soil science , soil water , meteorology , mechanical engineering , oceanography , chemistry , physics , materials science , organic chemistry , filter (signal processing) , computer science , engineering , metallurgy , computer vision , waste management
With the presence of highly permeable pathways, such as faults and fractures zones, coal seam gases, particularly CO 2 , could potentially migrate upwardly from the coal deposits into the shallow subsurface and then to the atmosphere. This letter reports soil gas mapping and gamma ray survey in coal basin of Hunter River Valley, Australia. The survey facilitated the delineation of fault structures across the sampling regions, where the identified faults were confirmed by an independent drilling investigation later. Furthermore, to evaluate the gas emission fluxes from coalbeds through fault zones, the measured CO 2 concentrations, coupled with an inverse modeling, enable the estimation of the width of the fault zone and associated CO 2 emission flux in the range of 2 × 10 −5 –6 × 10 −5 mol/m 2 /s at the study site. Our new approach provides a way to determine emissions of gases from deep formations, which may contribute considerably to the greenhouse gases cycles.