Noble gas monitoring at the seemingly inactive Ciomadul volcano, Eastern Carpathians, Romania

The Ciomadul volcano is the youngest volcano (32 ka) built by the Neogene volcanism in the Carpathian-Pannonian Region. This volcanic area is characterized by intense gas emissions (Kis et al., 2017) (CO₂, CH₄, H₂S) in the form of bubbling pools, mofettes and mineral water springs. The isotopic compositions of carbon, ¹³C_CO2 up to -3‰ VPDB and helium up to 3.1 Ra suggest magmatic origin of the gas up to 80% (Kis et al., 2019).

Although the volcano seems to be inactive, several features, petrologic and geophysical studies suggest that melt-bearing magmatic body could still exist beneath the volcano (Harangi et al., 2015). Moreover the geodynamic system is characterized by frequent earthquakes with magnitude up to 7 at Vrancea area, close to the CO₂-rich gas emissions of Ciomadul and the neighbouring areas.

In 2015 we started the monitoring of the helium isotopic ratios of Ciomadul to chech the possible relationship with seismicity. Our results show that in several cases the helium isotopic ratios increase at a seismic event with magnitude between 4 and 5.8 suggesting a relationship between the two phenomena.

 

Harangi, Sz., Lukács, R., Schmitt, A.K., Dunkl, I., Molnár, K., Kiss, B., Seghedi, I., Á. Novothny, Molnár, M. 2015, Constraints on the timing of Quaternary volcanism and duration of magma residence at Ciomadul volcano, east-central Europe, from combined U-Th/He and U-Th zircon geochronology, Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research, 301, 66-80

Kis, B.M., Ionescu, A., Cardellini, C., Harangi, Sz., Baciu, C., Caracausi, A; Viveiros, F. 2017, Quantification of carbon dioxide emissions of Ciomadul, the youngest volcano of the Carpathian-Pannonian Region (Eastern-Central Europe, Romania), Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research, 341, 119–130

Kis, B.M., Caracausi, A., Palcsu, L., Baciu, C., Ionescu, A., Futó, I., Sciarra, A., Harangi, Sz. 2019, Noble gas and carbon isotope systematic at the seemingly inactive Ciomadul volcano (Eastern-Central Europe, Romania, Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems, 20, 6, 3019–3043

This research belongs to the scientific project supported by the OTKA, K116528 (Hungarian National Research Fund), the EU and Hungary, co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund in the project GINOP-2.3.2-15-2016-00009 ‘ICER’ and the Deep Carbon Observatory.