Chi, and three co-authors, replied to a question raised by Burlinson (2018) about the validity of hydrogen gas (H2) data as determined by mass spectrometry is not a new one. The same question was raised five years ago by Burlinson (2013) and was rebutted by Hofstra and Landis (2013), who defended the validity of their data and pointed out that Burlinson’s perception of the analytical procedure of mass spectrometry and preservation of H2 in fluid inclusions was incorrect. Although Burlinson (2018) recognized that the low levels of H2 in our analytical results (Rabiei et al., 2017) have no impact on our mineralization models or conclusions, he insisted that “it is highly misleading to report such H2 analyses, as H2 is an instrumental artifact of the mass spectrometer ionizer and not a component of the fluid inclusion volatiles at all” (p. 997).
The authors would like to take this opportunity to further clarify Burlinson’s misperception of the issue and make two important points: (1) H2 is a common component in geologic fluids, and it is normal to detect it in fluid inclusions, and (2) the mass spectrometric analytical procedure that was used in our study (Rabiei et al., 2017) has already taken into account the background H2 that might be produced in the ionization process, and the data reported are above background and above the blanks.
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