" Thirteen days in southwest Greenland, searching for natural hydrogen — a likely source of energy for the first terrestrial life forms and a possible clean energy resource for human activities. Despite unforeseen events and bad weather, the research conducted on the rocks of Greenland could represent a turning point for the ERC DeepSeep project.
After landing in Nuuk and obtaining their permits for scientific activities, the team from the Deep Carbon Lab in Bologna, joined by a researcher from the National Research Council in Turin and another from the University of Copenhagen, heads south. The navigation conditions are not easy due to the drift of the glaciers, which have never been so abundant in the last 20–30 years. These conditions contrast starkly with those experienced in the rest of the world, where (yet another) hottest month in history has been recorded.
Here it’s essential to be faster than the expected storm and reach the first stop: the coastal village of Paamiut, to maintain the expedition schedule. Losing a few days could compromise the entire expedition. The team needs to collect as many rock samples as possible with a hammer and chisel. Like detectives, with magnifying glass in hand, the researchers are hunting for clues on the interaction between hydrogen and carbon present in particular rocks dating back almost 2 billion years ago and emerging on the surface over geological eras.
Like industrial hydrogen, natural hydrogen produces water (and not CO2) through combustion, but its production requires no external energy source. This is why discovering how this natural hydrogen originates and how it reacts with the rocks of the Earth’s crust could lead to the exploitation of clean energy naturally present underground. A momentous change, made up of intermediate steps and months of study at the microscope.
" In Paamiut, the researchers collect some samples brought to the surface by work on a construction site near the small airport. An object of study obtained at a stop imposed by the weather and ocean conditions — conditions that make Greenland a remote and complex region still today.
When the sky clears, it’s time to set sail again toward the second stage: Arsuk, five hours of navigation, among fjords and icebergs, further south. Once again, the team expects rain, wind that moves the sea ice and reconfigures the profile of the coast, and rough water. The rock formations that the researchers want to get their hands on are on the small island facing Arsuk. Breaking some test rocks seems to reveal structures similar to those studied in other areas, confirming the presence of hydrogen.
" “In the coming months, we’ll know more after the laboratory studies, but our preliminary observations confirm the preconditions for a potentially important discovery,” explains Alberto Vitale Brovarone, the geologist leading the expedition.
The next stop, on the tiny island of Storø, turns out to be equally surprising. Near a small bay, a rainbow of minerals under the microscope lens shows the effects of contact metamorphism. Underground magmatic activity may also have been caused by the formation of hydrogen, but of a different type. The researchers take notes.
The return to Arsuk allows the team to collect other rocks, near the Ivittuut mine, containing cryolite. In that area, previous research revealed the presence of methane in the rock fluid, which could have reacted perfectly with hydrogen. Another item to add to the backpack. In the end, the researchers collected more than 200 rock samples during the expedition.
A scientific expedition that, hopefully, will add another puzzle piece to the theory of natural hydrogen and increase awareness of the potential to take a significant step — one that is necessary for future generations.
At the origins of life on Earth
It’s in our nature (outdoors and otherwise) to investigate the origins of the world around us, to better understand our current lifestyle and imagine how it could change.
What was once simple curiosity has in recent years become a matter of survival, since we’ve come to understand that we can only adapt to the phenomena that are transforming our mountains, and us with them.
The Deep Seep scientific project investigates the origins of energy on Earth and on other planets, contributing to studies on the evolution of life and the climate on our planet as well. Through our Help the Mountains program, we’ve decided to support the work of Deep Carbon Lab, the Italian laboratory at the University of Bologna that is participating in the Deep Seep project.
WHERE DOES THE ENERGY THAT GIVES RISE TO LIFE ON EARTH COME FROM?
Many of the energy sources necessary for life, such as hydrogen and methane, are of biological origin. However, there are also other forms of natural hydrogen and methane that form from the interaction between geological fluids and rock. The processes and environments in which they develop are considered fundamental to the emergence of life on Earth, precisely because the first life forms needed this geological energy. And even today, a deep ecosystem hidden from our eyes in the terrestrial substratum, up to several kilometers deep, needs this energy to be able to sustain itself.
WHAT DOES DEEP CARBON LAB’S WORK INVOLVE?
To study the presence and impact of energy deep in the Earth, geologists from the University of Bologna travel through valleys and rocky cliffs in search of “indicator” rocks that have emerged in remote areas where tectonic activity has been particularly intense. The rock samples are then studied in the laboratory to understand the properties of the minerals that they’re made of and their (possible) involvement in chemical reactions with hydrogen. Rock fragments from hundreds of millions of years ago can thus tell us a story of energy and primordial life on Earth that would otherwise be unknown and unfathomable.
WHAT RESULTS HAVE BEEN OBTAINED SO FAR?
In the samples collected during previous expeditions — in Italy, Mongolia, the United States (Vermont), and Corsica — the members of the Deep Carbon Lab team observed the presence of gas bubbles composed of methane and hydrogen trapped in the minerals, due to specific reactions between geological fluids and deep minerals, particularly olivine. Among the unresolved questions, the most important concerns the presence of this energy in the deepest layers of the Earth and how the presence of these compounds could revolutionize our understanding of the geological and biological evolution of the Earth. All this could profoundly change our approach to energy and life on this and other planets, but also the way we fight global warming. For example, the natural hydrogen produced by these geological reactions could represent an important resource for the energy future of modern society. In fact, when this molecule burns it does not produce greenhouse gases but only water.
Fieldwork will continue in 2024 with an expedition to a remote area in southern Greenland, in a region called Nanortalik — “The place where polar bears go.” Here, various signs suggest a complex and intriguing geological history in which fluids rich in carbon and hydrogen pass through graphite, a very important mineral for the geological storage of carbon and a fundamental component of the electric batteries of the future.
