Noble gases dissolved in water present excellent tracers to reconstruct equilibration/recharge conditions, study fluid transport mechanisms and determine water origin. While noble gas analysis is usually applied in free water (groundwater aquifers, ocean water, lake water, …), this talk will present results of noble gas concentrations in pore fluids extracted from ocean sediments.

Noble gases were used to identify hydrothermal activity and study hydrothermal transport processes in deep-sea sediments in the Guaymas Basin, Gulf of California and around the Azores Archipelago. Another study presented in this talk will show how noble gases and excess air were employed to identify terrestrial groundwater in marine sediments (offshore freshened groundwater) in the Mecklenburg Bay and to study recharge conditions.