Constructing the deep temperature section of the Travale geothermal area in Italy, with the use of an electromagnetic geothermometer

• Published in: Izvestiya. Physics of the solid earth 2015, Vol.51 (1), p.87-94
• Main Authors: Spichak, V. V., Zakharova, O. K.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Computational fluid dynamics; Construction; Earth and Environmental Science; Earth Sciences; Electrical resistivity; Electromagnetics; Fluid flow; Fluids; Geophysics; Geophysics/Geodesy; Geothermal; Heat transfer; Reservoirs; Scientific apparatus & instruments; Temperature; Temperature distribution; Two dimensional
• ISSN: 1069-3513; 1555-6506
• DOI: 10.1134/S1069351315010140

The technology of electromagnetic geothermometer is applied for constructing the two-dimensional (2D) section of temperature in the Travale geothermal region in Italy up to a depth of 10 km. The joint analysis of this section, together with the previously constructed model of electric resistivity suggests that the heat transfer in the Travale region is rendered by the overheated vapor-gas fluids instead of liquid fluids as it was previously believed based on the interpretation of the resistivity model. Another important conclusion consists in the fact that, instead of two geothermal reservoirs, whose existence was previously tentatively inferred from the interpretation of the electromagnetic and seismic data, it is likely that there is a single deep reservoir with a shallow (near-surface) offshoot. From the constructed temperature distribution it can be seen that the temperature below a depth of 4 km exceeds 500°C, which indicates that drilling down to these depths could be useful for the subsequent exploitation of this geothermal reservoir.