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Record concentrations of a helium isotope found inside 62-million-year-old Arctic rocks could be the most compelling evidence to date of a slow leak in our planet's core. Building on the results of a previous analysis of ancient lava flows, a team of geochemists from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and the California Institute of Technology are now more certain than ever that helium trapped in the core as our planet was forming is making its way to the surface. Helium isn't the kind of element that makes friends easily. Being so light and non-reactive, there's little to stop the gas from...

UC Santa Barbara geologist Jim Boles has found evidence of helium leakage from the Earth’s mantle along a 30-mile stretch of the Newport-Inglewood Fault Zone in the Los Angeles Basin. Using samples of casing gas from two dozen oil wells ranging from LA’s Westside to Newport Beach in Orange County, Boles discovered that more than one-third of the sites — some of the deepest ones — show evidence of high levels of helium-3 (3He).Considered primordial, 3He is a vestige of the Big Bang. Its only terrestrial source is the mantle. Leakage of 3He suggests that the Newport-Inglewood fault is deeper...