China’s Helium Discovery in the Tarim Basin: Sourced from Radioactive Decay of Uranium and Thorium in Crustal Granite with Migration Through Vertical Faults and Trapping in Structural Highs

      China discovered a supergiant helium-rich gas field beneath the Tarim Basin’s Hetianhe gas field. The helium is thought to be sourced mainly from Precambrian-aged basement granites and associated sedimentary rocks below the field. This source is typical of helium fields. Daily Galaxy reports:

   “Located on the southern edge of the Bachu Uplift, the Hetianhe field contains {helium} concentrations between 0.27% and 0.42%, based on gas samples taken from dozens of wells. These values are well within the range considered suitable for industrial recovery of the lightest noble gas.”

     New research has tagged the helium as 99% sourced from the crustal Precambrian granites and associated sedimentary rocks, and only 1% from the mantle. Since the granite is over 1 billion years old, its uranium and thorium have been decaying radioactively for that long. Deep faults along the margins of that Bachu uplift are thought to be the means of conveying the helium upward into the natural gas reservoirs. The helium is thought to be carried upward in subsurface water along with neon, another inert gas. It also rises together with nitrogen-rich natural gas. The helium-rich gas is trapped in uplifted structural high areas with closure, as most helium around the world is trapped.

     The study, published in the Chinese journal Petroleum Science, compared composition data, including noble gas composition and ratio data, with helium-rich gas fields around the world. They used this data to determine the generation, migration, and accumulation of the helium-rich gas deposit. The researchers calculated that 62% of the helium is sourced from the basement helium source rocks, while 38% comes from sedimentary helium source rocks. They indicate that the helium first migrates in subsurface waters, then ‘de-gasses’ into a gas reservoir. They also note the general recipe for He-rich natural gas globally:

“…a comparison with the reservoir characteristics of globally recognized He-rich fields reveals that “shallow depth, low pressure, and high structural uplift” are key geological factors for helium accumulation.”

     Below, the authors explain how they used neon (Ne-20) and nitrogen/helium ratios to unravel the migration history of the gases into the natural gas reservoir:

“The source of 20Ne in natural gas is quite singular, and its concentration can be used to reflect the total amount of groundwater (Zhang et al., 2019a). In the Hetianhe gas field samples, 4He and 20Ne exhibit a strong linear relationship (Fig. 8), indicating that both have undergone similar subsurface migration processes. This suggests that, prior to being extracted by natural gas, both He and Ne were dissolved in formation water and migrated along with the water. This phenomenon is also observed in the Panhandle-Hugoton gas field and along the northern margin of the Qaidam Basin, reflecting the close relationship between 4He migration and groundwater movement (Brown, 2019; Zhang et al., 2019b). Additionally, in the Tarim Basin, there is a clear positive correlation between N2 and 4He concentrations in natural gas (Fig. 9). The 4He/N2 ratio in the Hetianhe gas field ranges from 0.017 to 0.054, which is similar to the 4He/N2 ratio of 0.028–0.078 observed in the Hugoton-Panhandle gas field in the United States (Brown, 2019). This further provides additional evidence that helium was primarily dissolved in the groundwater system before entering the hydrocarbon gas phase.”

     Below are more graphics from the paper depicting the generation, migration, and accumulation of the helium.

 

  

References:

 

China’s newly discovered massive helium reserve is much older than dinosaurs. Melissa Ait Lounis. Daily Galaxy. January 6, 2026. China’s newly discovered massive helium reserve is much older than dinosaurs

Helium dynamic accumulation process in the Hetianhe gas field, Tarim Basin, northwest China. Jia-Hao Lv, Quan-You Liu, Peng-Peng Li, Jia-Run Liu, Yu Gao, and Zheng Zhou. Petroleum Science. September 27, 2025. Helium dynamic accumulation process in the Hetianhe gas field, Tarim Basin, northwest China - ScienceDirect