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Imprints of hydrocarbon-bearing basinal fluids on a karst system: mineralogical and fluid inclusion studies from the Buda Hills, Hungary

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Abstract

Calcite veins and related sulphate–sulphide mineralisation are common in the Buda Hills. Also, abundant hypogenic caves are found along fractures filled with these minerals pointing to the fact that young cave-forming fluids migrated along the same fractures as the older mineralising fluids did. The studied vein-filling paragenesis consists of calcite, barite, fluorite and sulphides. The strike of fractures is consistent—NNW–SSE—concluding a latest Early Miocene maximum age for the formation of fracture-filling minerals. Calcite crystals contain coeval primary, hydrocarbon-bearing- and aqueous inclusions indicating that also hydrocarbons have migrated together with the mineralising fluids. Hydrocarbon inclusions are described here for the first time from the Buda Hills. Mixed inclusions, i.e., petroleum with ‘water-tail’, were also detected, indicating that transcrystalline water migration took place. The coexistence of aqueous and petroleum inclusions permitted to establish the entrapment temperature (80°C) and pressure (85 bar) of the fluid and thus also the thickness of sediments, having been eroded since latest Early Miocene times, was calculated (800 m). Low salinity of the fluids (<1.7 NaCl eq. wt%) implies that hydrocarbon-bearing fluids were diluted by regional karst water. FT-IR investigations revealed that CO2 and CH4 are associated with hydrocarbons. Groundwater also contains small amounts of HC and related gases on the basin side even today. Based on the location of the paleo- and recent hydrocarbon indications, identical migration pathways were reconstructed for both systems. Hydrocarbon-bearing fluids are supposed to have migrated north-westward from the basin east to the Buda Hills from the Miocene on.

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Acknowledgments

Financial support for the project was provided by ENI S.p.A. We appreciate the thoughtful discussions with Anita Erőss and Judit Mádl-Szőnyi about the hydrogeology and with László Fodor about the structural geology of the area. We are grateful to Csanád Sajgó for the discussion about the organic geochemical part of the work. We thank the help of Kornél Torkos at the initial stage of gas chromatographic measurements. Márta Berkesi and Tibor Guzmics are acknowledged for their help in Raman analysis. We are thankful to Ádám Vadas and Benedek Gál for their help in the modification of the geological map and cross-section. We appreciate the work of the anonymous reviewer.

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Correspondence to Zsófia Poros.

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Poros, Z., Mindszenty, A., Molnár, F. et al. Imprints of hydrocarbon-bearing basinal fluids on a karst system: mineralogical and fluid inclusion studies from the Buda Hills, Hungary. Int J Earth Sci (Geol Rundsch) 101, 429–452 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00531-011-0677-8

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