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Canada

Researchers Found an Abundance of Helium In Canada's Baffin Island (nature.com) 39

Posted by EditorDavid from the it's-a-gas dept.
Long-time Slashdot reader thepacketmaster writes: Documented in a recent article in the journal Nature, researchers have found an abundance of both helium-4 and helium-3 trapped in the volcanic rocks on Canada's Baffin Island.

As the Earth formed, it is thought that helium-4 and helium-3 flowing on the solar wind became trapped in the minerals of the cooling planet. With heavier elements and minerals sinking to the bottom, this trapped helium was transported to the core, where it would have remained locked in its original forms.

Earth isn't massive enough to hold on to helium in any significant quantities, though. Any that did not get trapped, or that was subsequently released when the minerals melted in the mantle or due to massive impacts, would have eventually seeped up to the surface and floated off into space. So, helium is relatively rare on Earth, and helium-3 is even more so.
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Researchers Found an Abundance of Helium In Canada's Baffin Island More

Researchers Found an Abundance of Helium In Canada's Baffin Island

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  • The article full-text seems to be pay-walled, while the abstract does not mention large total quantities of Helium, just high ratios of He3/He4.
    So what total amount of Helium being newly found are we talking about, and how much of it is within economic reach?

  • The notion that terrestrial helium was trapped from primordial solar winds is a new one to me. Quoting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helium [wikipedia.org]:

    Most terrestrial helium present today is created by the natural radioactive decay of heavy radioactive elements (thorium and uranium, although there are other examples), as the alpha particles emitted by such decays consist of helium-4 nuclei. This radiogenic helium is trapped with natural gas in concentrations as great as 7% by volume, from which it is extracted commer

  • Hey smart people. Why would the Helium float away from the earth, but not the moon?

    • Re:What about the moon? (Score:4, Funny)

      by mrbester ( 200927 ) on Saturday November 04, 2023 @05:32PM (#63980200) Homepage

      Because cheese is denser than helium.

    • Re:What about the moon? (Score:4, Informative)

      by bugs2squash ( 1132591 ) on Saturday November 04, 2023 @05:35PM (#63980208)
      Maybe floating away needs something to float upon. It's not that He is not attracted by gravity, it's that Nitrogen and Oxygen etc. are denser and so He gets squeezed out of the prime real estate close to Earth.
      • Temperature is a measure of kinetic energy, so that the particles of one gas at a given temperature have the same kinetic energy as the particles of another gas at the same temperature. Since kinetic energy is dependent on both mass and velocity, lighter particles have higher velocities at the same temperature. Helium (and hydrogen) are light enough that they can attain escape velocity at atmospheric temperatures, with some fairly small probability. So they leak out over time.

    • Re:What about the moon? (Score:4, Funny)

      by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Saturday November 04, 2023 @05:48PM (#63980240)

      All that lunar helium is what keeps the moon floating high up in the sky!

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

      Same reason why your wooden log floats on the top of water, but lies down on the ground. Relative density. There's no atmosphere on the Moon, so relative density of helium vs near absolute vacuum of space, it behaves like a wood log on the ground. It lies on the surface.

      But on Earth, there's much more dense atmosphere of primarily nitrogen. So it floats on top of it and gets blown off the edge of the atmosphere by the solar wind.

      • Standard exercise in first semester undergrad physics: you are given some simplifications from Maxwell-Boltzmann and about probability distributions, then asked to examine for several gases, the upper tails of velocity distribution versus orbital escape velocity at ordinary temperatures. As a kid I was crushed as my amazing Mickey Mouse balloon slowly sank in the closet: slippery little monoatomic buggers are worse than Chihuahuas at slipping out and running away.
    • Because the He on the moon is trying to float away from ice surfaces at temperatures of 100 K or so, where it's (small) chemical affinity for the structure of the ice (van der Waals forces, primarily) is sufficient to keep it in place. He on the surface of the Earth by contrast is escaping from contact with ice at about 200 K (for mid-winter Antarctica/ Verkhoyansk mountains/ Greenland plateau) or hotter (molten ice, even!).

      There are warmer places on the surface of the Moon - for part of each Lunar day/ t

  • Trace amounts or commercial amounts? (Score:3)

    by HotNeedleOfInquiry ( 598897 ) on Saturday November 04, 2023 @05:18PM (#63980176)
    Real basic question. I'm going to assume trace amounts, which is mildly interesting but won't solve the helium shortage issue.

    • If Canada is smart they'll be very careful with how they handle the situation?

      • Re:Trace amounts or commercial amounts? (Score:5, Funny)

        by NomDeAlias ( 10449224 ) on Saturday November 04, 2023 @05:51PM (#63980254)
        They'll handle it with a land acknowledgment statement, flying the flag and half mast for the mass grave of He and then figure out a new tax to make their people poorer.

        • Then that would be the "not smart" option.

        • Followed by an anouncement by Jordan Pederson that the helium shortage can best be solved by cleaning your room and not using prefered pronouns.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by NFN_NLN ( 633283 )

          To recognize the Helium-3 is an expression of gratitude and appreciation to those whose territory you reside on, and a way of honoring the Indigenous people who have been living and working on the Helium-3 from time immemorial. It is important to understand the long standing history that has brought you to reside on the Helium-3, and to seek to understand your place within that history. Helium-3 acknowledgments do not exist only in a past tense, or historical context.

      • We plan to use it for world domination of course... Bow before your new Helium-3 overlords.

        Anyone who refuses to drink beer, eat poutine, or play hockey will be put out on an ice floe.

        • Anyone who refuses to drink beer, eat poutine, or play hockey will be put out on an ice floe.

          It does take a lot of beer before poutine starts looking edible.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

            Anyone who refuses to drink beer, eat poutine, or play hockey will be put out on an ice floe.

            It does take a lot of beer before poutine starts looking edible.

            Who cares if it looks edible, you just eat it. French fries (or freedom fries, is that still a thing?), cheese curds and gravy. Honestly the hard part is deciding if you want the gravy to melt the cheese to give you that cheese pull, or to make the fries delicious and salty while the cheese curds squeak.

            I mean, if you're going to dunk on the best foods

        • will be put out on an ice floe.

          A rapidly melting ice floe.

  • I'd like to extract some of this for resale. I believe I have enough resources to build the storage container, outpost, and a few turrets.

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