Third Party Funds Group - Sub project
Acronym: ForMovFluid
Start date : 01.07.2025
The project aims to analyze the chemical and isotopic composition of vein-filling materials and alteration halos along former fluid pathways to determine fluid origins in foreland basins and investigate element transport mechanisms within flow networks and adjacent host rocks. Advanced analytical tools, including LA-ICP-MS/MS and SIMS, will be employed. Targeted field sites include Great Cumbrae island near the Highland Boundary Fault in the Southern Scottish Highlands and the northern Variscan Front in Belgium, where complex fluid networks with distinctive reaction halos are exposed in sedimentary rocks. The extent of reaction fronts and halos tapering former fluid pathways at these sites will be analyzed to constrain fluid flow rates and determine whether fluid expulsion into foreland basins occurs as continuous flow or in rapid pulses. To achieve this, 1D and 2D transport equations will be developed to model fluid advection along a single fracture and transverse diffusion outward from the fracture. These models will enable calculations of time-averaged fluid velocities and the duration of fluid flow along brittle fractures.