GEOLOGICAL AND GEOPHYSICAL STUDY FOR ELABORATION OF GEOTHERMAL MODEL IN ORADEA-BAILE FELIX AREA

Author(s):  
Laurențiu Asimopolos ◽  
Natalia-Silvia Asimopoli

Thermal methods consist of measuring thermal gradient and satellite data, which can be used to determine the Earth's surface temperature and thermal inertia of surficial materials, of thermal infrared radiation emitted at the Earth's surface. Thermal gradient measuring, with a knowledge of the thermal conductivity provides a measure of heat flow. Conditions that may increase or decrease and heat flow are influenced by hydrologic, topographic factors and anomalous thermal conductivity. Also, oxidation of sulphide bodies in-place or on waste deposits, if sufficiently rapid, can generate thermal anomalies, which can provide a measure of the amount of metal being released to the environment. The geothermal gradient on the territory of Romania, the increase of the temperature with the depth, has an average value of 2.5°-3°C/100m, which corresponds to a temperature of 100° C at 3000 m deep. There are many areas where the value of the geothermal gradient differs considerably from this average. For example, in areas where the rock plate suffered rapid dips and the basin was filled with sediment "very young "from a geological point of view, the geothermal gradient may be less than 1° C/100m. On the other hand, in other geothermal areas the gradient exceeds much this average. These areas are true underground thermal reservoirs of potentially high geothermal energy which under certain favourable conditions can be exploited to serve heating installations and domestic hot water systems. The geothermal prospecting for the entire territory of Romania, carried out by temperature measurements allowed the development of geothermal maps, highlighting the temperature distribution at different depths. Geophysical data obtained through various methods and geophysical modelling provide generalized and non-unique solutions to the geometry of underground geological relations as well as to the physical characteristics of different formations. The non-uniqueness of these models (solutions to the direct problem) arises from the impossibility of knowing the boundary conditions between different strata, which together with the propagation equations of the different fields (depending on the geophysical method used for the investigation of the basement) form the systems that offer the solutions of the model

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tilman Spohn ◽  
Matthias Grott ◽  
Nils Müller ◽  
Jörg Knollenberg ◽  
Christian Krause ◽  
...  

<p>The Heat Flow and Physical Properties Package HP<sup>3</sup> onboard the Nasa InSight mission has been on the surface of Mars for more than one Earth year. The instrument's primary goal is to measure Mars' surface heat flow through measuring the geothermal gradient and the thermal condunctivity at depths between 3 and 5m. To get to depth, the package includes a penetrator nicknamed the "Mole"  equipped with sensors to precisely measure the thermal conductivity. The Mole tows a tether with printed temperature sensors;  a device to measure the length of the tether towed and a tiltmeter will help to track the path of the Mole and the tether. Progress of the Mole has been stymied by difficulties of digging into the regolith. The Mole functions as a mechanical diode with an internal hammer mechanism that drives it forward. Recoil is balanced mostly by internal masses but a remaining 3 to 5N has to be absorbed by hull friction. The Mole was designed to work in cohesionless sand but at the InSight landing a cohesive duricrust of at least 7cm thickness but possibly 20cm thick was found. Upon initial penetration to 35cm depth, the Mole punched a hole about 6cm wide and 7cm deep into the duricrust, leaving more than a fourth of its length without hull friction.  It is widely agreed that the lack of friction is the reason for the failure to penetrate further. The HP<sup>3</sup> team has since used the robotic arm with its scoop to pin the Mole to the wall of the hole and helped it penetrate further to almost 40cm. The initial penetration rate of the Mole has been used to estimate a penetration resistance of 300kPa. Attempts to crush the duricrust a few cm away from the pit have been unsuccessful from which a lower bound to the compressive strength of 350kPa is estimated.  Analysis of the slope of the steep walls of the hole gave a lower bound to cohesion of 10kPa. As for thermal properties, a measurement of the thermal conductivity of the regolith with the Mole thermal sensors resulted in 0.045 Wm<sup>-1</sup>K<sup>-1</sup>.  The value is considerably uncertain because part of the Mole having contact to air.  The HP³ radiometer has been monitoring the surface temperature next to the lander and a thermal model fitted to the data give a regolith thermal inertia of  189 ± 10 J m<sup>-2</sup> K<sup>-1</sup> s<sup>-1/2</sup>. With best estimates of heat capacity and density, this corresponds to a thermal conductivity of 0.045 Wm<sup>-1</sup>K<sup>-1</sup>, consistent with the above measurement using the Mole. The data can be fitted well with a homogeneous soil model, but observations of Phobos eclipses in March 2019 indicate that there possibly is a thin top layer of lower thermal conductivity. A model with a top 5 mm layer of 0.02 Wm-1K-1 above a half-space of 0.05 Wm-1K-1 matches the amplitudes of both the diurnal and eclipse temperature curves. Another set of eclipses will occur in April 2020.</p><p> </p>


Geophysics ◽  
1988 ◽  
Vol 53 (5) ◽  
pp. 707-720 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dave Deming ◽  
David S. Chapman

The present day temperature field in a sedimentary basin is a constraint on the maturation of hydro‐carbons; this temperature field may be estimated by inverting corrected bottom‐hole temperature (BHT) data. Thirty‐two BHTs from the Pineview oil field are corrected for drilling disturbances by a Horner plot and inverted for the geothermal gradient in nine formations. Both least‐squares [Formula: see text] norm and uniform [Formula: see text] norm inversions are used; the [Formula: see text] norm is found to be more robust for the Pineview data. The inversion removes random error from the corrected BHT data by partitioning scatter between noise associated with the BHT measurement and correction processes and local variations in the geothermal gradient. Three‐hundred thermal‐conductivity and density measurements on drill cuttings are used, together with formation density logs, to estimate the in situ thermal conductivity of six of the nine formations. The thermal‐conductivity estimates are used in a finite‐element model to evaluate 2-D conductive heat refraction and, for a series of inversions of synthetic data, to assess the influence of systematic and random noise on the inversion results. A temperature‐anomaly map illustrates that a temperature field calculated by a forward application of the inversion results has less error than any single corrected BHT. Mean background heat flow at Pineview is found to be [Formula: see text] (±13 percent), but is locally higher [Formula: see text] due to heat refraction. The BHT inversion (1) is limited by systematic noise or model error, (2) achieves excellent resolution of a temperature field although resolution of individual formation gradients may be poor, and (3) generally cannot detect lateral variations in heat flow unless thermal‐conductivity structure is constrained.


1972 ◽  
Vol 9 (10) ◽  
pp. 1333-1337 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. H. Mathews

Temperature measurements have been obtained from 80 points along the Granduc haulage tunnel, at depths of as much as 1.5 km below the surface. These fit, within 1 °C, a simplified model assuming, among other things, uniform thermal conductivity of the rocks and a temperature at rock–glacier contacts of 0 °C. For these assumptions a generalized thermal gradient (with effects of topographic irregularity removed) is about 26 mK m−1 (26 °C/km). With the thermal conductivity of a suite of rocks from the tunnel averaging 2.72 ± 12 W m−1K−1 (6.50 ±.28 cal/cm s °C) present heat flow of about 73 mW m−2 (1.74 μcal/cm2 s) can be derived.


2021 ◽  
Vol 71 ◽  
pp. 159-183
Author(s):  
Mazlan Madon ◽  
◽  
John Jong ◽  

An update of the geothermal gradient and heat flow maps for offshore Malaysia based on oil and gas industry data is long overdue. In this article we present an update based on available data and information compiled from PETRONAS and operator archives. More than 600 new datapoints calculated from bottom-hole temperature (BHT) data from oil and gas wells were added to the compilation, along with 165 datapoints from heat flow probe measurements at the seabed in the deep-water areas off Sarawak and Sabah. The heat flow probe surveys also provided direct measurements of seabed sediment thermal conductivity. For the calculation of heat flows from the BHT-based temperature gradients, empirical relationships between sediment thermal conductivity and burial depth were derived from thermal conductivity measurements of core samples in oil/gas wells (in the Malay Basin) and from ODP and IODP drillholes (as analogues for Sarawak and Sabah basins). The results of this study further enhanced our insights into the similarities and differences between the various basins and their relationships to tectonic settings. The Malay Basin has relatively high geothermal gradients (average ~47 °C/km). Higher gradients in the basin centre are attributed to crustal thinning due to extension. The Sarawak Basin has similar above-average geothermal gradients (~45 °C/km), whereas the Baram Delta area and the Sabah Shelf have considerably lower gradients (~29 to ~34 °C/km). These differences are attributed to the underlying tectonic settings; the Sarawak Shelf, like the Malay Basin, is underlain by an extensional terrane, whereas the Sabah Basin and Baram Delta east of the West Baram Line are underlain by a former collisional margin (between Dangerous Grounds rifted terrane and Sabah). The deep-water areas off Sarawak and Sabah (North Luconia and Sabah Platform) show relatively high geothermal gradients overall, averaging 80 °C/km in North Luconia and 87 °C/km in the Sabah Platform. The higher heat flows in the deep-water areas are consistent with the region being underlain by extended continental terrane of the South China Sea margin. From the thermal conductivity models established in this study, the average heat flows are: Malay Basin (92 mW/m2), Sarawak Shelf (95 mW/m2) and Sabah Shelf (79 mW/m2). In addition, the average heat flows for the deep-water areas are as follows: Sabah deep-water fold-thrust belt (66 mW/m2), Sabah Trough (42 mW/m2), Sabah Platform (63 mW/m2) and North Luconia (60 mW/m2).


1962 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 425-428 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. G. Mokadam

The entropy equation contains terms which indicate entropy generation due to two irreversible processes: Heat flow in the presence of temperature gradient, and gas flow in the presence of frictional force. These flows are assumed to be linearly dependent upon the temperature gradient and the frictional force. This assumption includes two cross phenomena: Convective heat transfer (set up by pressure gradient), and free convection (set up by temperature gradient). They are interdependent. Usually the frictional force is equal to the gaseous-phase pressure gradient. When this pressure gradient is zero, the heat flow depends only upon the thermal gradient. By entrapping the gas in the porous medium, the gas flow is stopped. This gives rise to a pressure gradient which sets up a convective heat flow opposing that due to thermal gradient. Consequently, the thermal conductivity of the porous insulator decreases. Experimental work on Tritex insulation material indicated a 22 per cent decrease in thermal conductivity.


2018 ◽  
Vol 36 (5) ◽  
pp. 1114-1135 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chen Guo ◽  
Yong Qin ◽  
Lingling Lu

Geothermal fields in coal-bearing strata significantly influence coal mining and coalbed methane accumulation and development. Based on temperature data from 135 coalfield exploration boreholes and thermophysical tests of 43 rock and coal samples from the Upper Permian coal-bearing strata of the Bide-Santang basin in western Guizhou, South China, the distribution of terrestrial heat flow and the geothermal gradient in the study area are revealed, and the geological controls are analysed. The results show that the thermal conductivity of the coal-bearing strata ranges from 0.357 to 3.878 W (m K)−1 and averages 1.962 W (m K)−1. Thermal conductivity is controlled by lithology and burial depth. Thermal conductivity progressively increases for the following lithologies: coal, mudstone, siltstone, fine sandstone, and limestone. For the same lithology, the thermal conductivity increases with the burial depth. The present geothermal gradient ranges from 15.5 to 30.3°C km−1 and averages 23.5°C km−1; the terrestrial heat flow ranges from 46.94 to 69.44 mW m−2 and averages 57.55 mW m−2. These values are lower than the averages for South China, indicating the relative tectonic stability of the study area. The spatial distribution of the terrestrial heat flow and geothermal gradient is consistent with the main structural orientation, indicating that the geothermal field distribution is tectonically controlled at the macro-scale. This distribution is also controlled by active groundwater, which reduces the terrestrial heat flow and geotemperature. The high geothermal gradient in the shallow strata (<200 m) is mainly caused by the low thermal conductivity of the unconsolidated sedimentary cover. The gas content of the coal seam is positively correlated with terrestrial heat flow, indicating that inherited palaeogeothermal heat flow from when coalbed methane was generated in large quantities during the Yanshanian period due to intense magmatic activity.


Author(s):  
Andrea Forster ◽  
Daniel F. Merriam

Temperature logs are interpreted to investigate the thermal structure of the units overlying the Kansas portion of the Cretaceous Dakota aquifer. The aim of this study is to determine if additional heat input by fluids exists and thus clarify whether the overall conductive heat flow from the basement through the sequence might be overprinted by heat advection. Although interval thermal gradients are determined for different lithologic (stratigraphic) units, the shale thermal gradients are preferred for heat-flow estimation. Shale thermal conductivity as measured in Mesozoic shales in Nebraska and South Dakota is extrapolated to the area because of the similar lithology. A few thermal-conductivity values are determined in sandstone samples of the Dakota Formation and also used in heat-flow estimation. In general, the noncalcareous, marine Cretaceous shales (Pierre, Carlile, Graneros, and Kiowa) show different thermal gradients. Gradients in the Pierre (average value 58.5°C/km) and Carlile (55.5°C/km) are slightly higher than the average gradient in the Graneros Shale (45.1°C/km) and Kiowa Formation (46.5°C/km). The higher thermal gradients are limited to the extreme northwestern corner of the study area where the Pierre and Carlile are present. The heat-flow density of 69-74 mW/m2 observed there is slightly higher than the average of 60 mW/m2 typical for central and eastern Kansas. The higher heat flow observed is in the range of data reported and mapped for northeastern Colorado and the Nebraska Panhandle on the western flank of the Chadron Arch, an area with geothermal overprint by warm fluids. Regional differences in heat flow in western Kansas seemingly are caused by the different composition, porosity, and permeability of the aquifer and the nearness to recharge areas.


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