Current Status and Occurrence Characteristics of Water-soluble Helium Resources in Qinghai Province

As a special type of helium reservoir, water-soluble helium has gradually received widespread attention in recent years. Qinghai Province has a vast territory and abundant groundwater resources such as hot springs. Through a systematic investigation of hot springs, cold springs, and brine, the distribution, content, genetic characteristics, and relationship with temperature and mineralization of water-soluble helium resources were systematically explored. Research has shown that the distribution of water-soluble helium resources in Qinghai Province is closely related to intrusive rocks, mainly distributed in the Qaidam Basin, Gonghe Basin, Maduo Region, and South Qilian Basin. Among them, the Qaidam Basin has the highest water-soluble helium content, up to 1.1%; Estimate the helium production in the Qaidam Basin, Gonghe Basin, Maduo Region, and South Qilian Basin, which are 39.49 × 10⁸ m³, 2.16 × 10⁸ m³, 1.46 × 10⁸ m³, and the R/Ra is 0.003~0.068, indicating a typical crustal origin gas; The helium content is weakly positively correlated with temperature and positively correlated with mineralization, and hot springs with water temperature greater than 25 ℃ and saline water with mineralization greater than 1 g/l are favorable environments for the occurrence of water-soluble helium resources in Qinghai Province.