173 Geologic Energy Resources and Storage for Now and the Future

This session seeks contributions describing research on multi-resource development efforts, non-traditional uses of fossil fuels, natural hydrogen and helium, CCUS, enhanced geothermal energy, storage of hydrogen and compressed air, and enhanced methane recovery and carbon storage in coal.

Tuesday, 21 October 2025
8:00 AM - 12:00 PM
HBGCC, 302C

Natural Hydrogen and Helium Resources in Texas: Where are the Sweet Spots?

Paper number: 173-2
Program: Technical Sessions
Time: 8:25 AM – 8:40 AM

Authors

Abstract

The last few years have witnessed a substantial surge in research and development of exploration methods for natural hydrogen and helium. This is largely driven by a significant rise in the economic and strategic value of these important resources. In this presentation, we report on new results from an ongoing research program to identify “sweet spots” for natural hydrogen and helium in Texas. Our approach is based on defining and understanding the underlying geologic systems for the generation, migration, and trapping of natural hydrogen and helium. 

We start by placing special emphasis on de-risking source rocks and charge mechanism. Specifically, Phase 1 of the study is a data compilation effort focused on compiling gas concentration measurements and analyzing them to highlight various interesting trends. In Phase 2, we combine these observations with an integrated data-driven approach to interpret and explain these trends as well as to identify new potential sweet spots for natural hydrogen and helium. To this end, we utilize the results of recent research for mapping the geologic basement of Texas, including updated lithology, structure, and geologic terrane maps.  These new basement maps are central to our ability to create various layers that can be combined to identify favorable locations for the generation of natural hydrogen and helium. An important feature of our approach is the application of recent advances in potential fields geophysical data analysis and inversion to help identify basement lithologies that facilitate the generation of both hydrogen and helium. In addition, we incorporate surface soil measurements to help quantify seepage anomalies for hydrogen and helium that can potentially contribute to increasing the confidence level associated with identified sweet spots. 

With regard to hydrogen, our approach is not limited to assessing natural generation in the subsurface, as it is also intended to explore areas that are particularly suitable for stimulated hydrogen production. The special case of stimulated hydrogen requires particular emphasis on additional layers, such as basement depth and present-day temperatures at the top of the basement which impact both geologic and economics risks. Finally, we place all data and resulting maps in an interactive online geospatial environment, which allows us to keep the results evergreen as additional data arrive based on new sampling efforts from outcrops and wells.

Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs. Vol. 57, No. 6

doi: 10.1130/abs/2025AM-412859

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