Geothermal Fluids

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The essential first step in processing the fluids is to extract the volatiles of interest (helium, carbon) from the carrier phase, i.e. the water or steam. We do this on our extraction or separation line. We use a series of traps held at different temperatures (e.g. using a mixture of dry ice and methanol we can achieve a temperature of -80^oC) to condense the water vapor but not the gas of interest. In this way we can resolve the volatiles into a condensable phase (mainly CO₂) and non-condensible phase (containing the helium), measure their pressures (and hence their amounts) and then aliquot them into glass vials for transfer to the mass spectrometers for isotopic analysis.

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