Elemental and isotopic fractionation of noble gases in gas and oil under reservoir conditions: Impact of thermodiffusion.

Noble gases, and the way they fractionate, is a promising approach to better constrain origin, migration and initial state distributions of fluids in gas and oil reservoirs. Thermodiffusion, is one of the phenomena that may lead to isotope and elemental fractionation of noble gases. However, this effect, assumed to be small, has not been quantified, nor measured, in oil and gas under reservoir conditions.

Nitrogen isotopic composition and density of the Archean atmosphere.

Understanding the atmosphere's composition during the Archean eon is fundamental to unraveling ancient environmental conditions. We show from the analysis of nitrogen and argon isotopes in fluid inclusions trapped in 3.0- to 3.

Argon isotopic composition of Archaean atmosphere probes early Earth geodynamics.

Understanding the growth rate of the continental crust through time is a fundamental issue in Earth sciences. The isotopic signatures of noble gases in the silicate Earth (mantle, crust) and in the atmosphere afford exceptional insight into the evolution through time of these geochemical reservoirs. However, no data for the compositions of these reservoirs exists for the distant past, and temporal exchange rates between Earth's interior and its surface are severely under-constrained owing to a lack of samples preserving the original signature of the atmosphere at the time of their formation.