The gas and mercury studies are used in geological prospecting in combination with geochemical and geophysical methods for mapping ore bodies and, to a lesser extent, as an indirect method for revealing hydrocarbon deposits and mapping petroleum product plumes.
The gas and mercury surveying is used, as a method of prospecting for hydrocarbon deposits, for mapping active deep snaps and tectonically weakened sections of the sedimentary cover, associated with snaps of the basement. Thanks to its unique physical and chemical characteristics, mercury is the most sensitive geothermodynamic and geodynamic indicator. The gas and mercury surveying is usually carried out in two modifications, with a sampling of soil air and a sampling of soils from subsoil horizons. The combination of the two methods for studying the field (gas) and laboratory (soil, water) mercury content allows for obtaining reliable results. As a result of holding the mercury survey over oil deposits, contours of anomalous zones with mercury content above the bulk earth values are highlighted, which confirms the effectiveness of the method used. The absence of a gas and mercury anomaly over unproductive structures and deep snaps of different rank serves as a confirmation of the promising nature of the proposed method. For productive structures, arc-shaped or annular anomalies over the GWC (OWC) contours are fixed in the observed gas and mercury fields that are the mercury anomalies that are confined to the peripheral parts of the deposit and to fix its contacts with the deads. The mercury methods can be successfully used to provide analytical high-performance rapid mercury surveys for oil and gas, both for subsoil air and soil samples and bottom sediments. The complex of gas and mercury studies can be effectively applied in solving environmental tasks, including remote detection of petroleum product plumes in an oil depot territory, an inspection of oil pipeline routes, etc.
The mercury survey is most effective in prospecting for ore mineralization, ore bodies, and the mapping of snaps of different rank when combined with geological, geochemical, and geophysical methods.
In the form of a mercury-salt lithological and geochemical method, it is carried out in salt superimposed halos of highly mobile ore elements, and concerning high mobility in the hyper genesis zone, mercury is a universal indicator of the accumulation of many metals, including gold ore deposits of various genetic types.