| Author(s): | Starinsky, A. and Katz, Amitai |
| Year: | 2003 |
| Title: | The formation of natural cryogenic brines |
| Reference: | Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta |
| Keywords: | cryogenic, brine, saline groundwater, glacial, glacier, glaciation, mirabillite, antarcticite, halite, hydrohalite, freezing, evaporite, shield, fracture, crystalline basement, saline lake, Canada, Fennoscandinavia, Bohemia |
| Overview: | The models for origin and formation of hypersaline deep groundwaters in basement rocks in Shield areas (Canada,Sweden, Finland and Bohemia) are discussed. The authors consider that the hypersaline groundwaters have been formed by concentration of seawater through freezing during Quaternary glaciations. They suggest that the brines formed from seawater within depressions ('cryogenic troughs') formed at the margins of ice sheets. These depressions are the 'cryogenic analogue' of evaporitic lagoons. Calculations indicate that 1Ma is sufficient to saturate a 2000 km radius x 1 km thick rock mass with brine, at an H2O removal rate of only 2.8 mm/yr. Density-induced brine flow occurs via fissures beneath the ice to produce continental-scale saline groundwater migration. |