Halogens in water from the crystalline basement of the Gotthard rail base tunnel (central Alps)

Drilling of the new Gotthard rail base tunnel (central Alps) opened a large number of water-conducting fractures in granite and gneiss of the crystalline basement. The overburden reaches locally more than 2000 m and water and rock temperature is up to 45 °C. The tunnel crosses a series of steeply dipping fractured rock units that also crop out at the surface above the tunnel. Recharge water enters the fractured rocks in the high mountainous area, migrates gravity driven to the sampling locality in the tunnel. Along its flow path it reacts with rocks exposed on the fractures where it dissolves the principal granite minerals, resulting in high-pH Na2CO3 waters.The tunnel waters contain unusually high concentrations of fluoride ranging from 5 to 29 mg/L. Alteration of F-bearing biotite to F-free chlorite is one of the sources of fluorine. The highest F-concentrations result from the equilibration of low-Ca waters with fluorite. Fluoride concentration is strongly lithology-dependent and sharp discontinuities in both, concentration and saturation state with respect to fluorite occur at the contacts of the different gneiss and granite slabs.Chloride concentrations vary between 1 and 1300 mg/L. In contrast, the Cl/Br mass ratio exhibits small variations and centers around 110 suggesting a common source for the Cl and Br, which is independent of the lithology. In the northern part of the tunnel, Cl and Br are chiefly derived from saline pore fluids of one lithology which is then mixed with low-salinity water along flow paths. Cl/Br ratios of the waters in the southern part of the tunnel section are similar to those measured in experimental leachates from different tunnel rocks, suggesting that leaching of metamorphic fluids in the pore space is the main source of both Cl and Br.