0000000000622882

AUTHOR

M. Temovski

Duvalo (North Macedonia): A "volcano" without volcanic activity

T he Duvalo locality is located in the SW of the Republic of North Macedonia, in the Ohrid region, near the village of Kosel. It is an area of strong soil degassing, called “volcano” by the local people despite volcanic activity has never been documented in the recent geologic history of the area [1]. A large area (thousands of sqm) shows signs of strong alteration and is devoid of vegetation. Until the 19thcentury sulphur was mined from this area [1]. In August 2019, a campaign of soil CO2 flux measurements and soil gas sampling was made. Duvalo is sometimes referred to as an active geothermal feature but no signs of enhanced geothermal gradient were found and the soil temperatures at 50 c…

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Duvalo “Volcano” (North Macedonia): A Purely Tectonic‐Related CO 2 Degassing System

Duvalo “volcano” is a site of anomalous geogenic degassing close to Ohrid (North Macedonia) not related to volcanic activity, despite its name. CO2 flux measurements made with the accumulation chamber (321 sites over ∼50,000 m2) showed fluxes up to nearly 60,000 g m-2 d-1, sustaining a total output of ∼67 t d-1. Soil gas samples were taken at 50 cm depth from sites with high CO2 fluxes and analyzed for their chemical and isotope composition. The gas is mainly composed by CO2 (> 90%) with significant concentrations of H2S (up to 0.55 %) and CH4 (up to 0.32 %). The isotope compositions of He (R/RA 0.10) and of CO2 (δ13C ∼0‰) exclude significant mantle contribution, while δ13C-CH4 (∼ -35‰) …

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