Heat Aggregation Mechanisms of Hot Dry Rocks Resources in the Gonghe Basin, Northeastern Tibetan Plateau

Abstract

Hot dry rock (HDR) is an important geothermal resource and clean energy source that may play an increasingly important role in future energy management. High‐temperature HDR resources were recently detected in deep regions of the Gonghe Basin on the northeastern edge of the Tibetan Plateau, which led to a significant breakthrough in HDR resource exploration in China. This research analyzes the deep temperature distribution, radiogenic heat production, heat flow, and crustal thermal structure in the Qiaboqia Valley, Guide Plain, and Zhacanggou area of the Gonghe Basin based on geothermal exploration borehole logging data, rock thermophysical properties, and regional geophysical exploration data. The results are applied to discuss the heat accumulation mechanism of the HDR resources in the Gonghe Basin. The findings suggest that a low‐velocity layer in the thickened crust of the Tibetan Plateau provides the most important source of constant intracrustal heat for the formation of HDR resources in the Gonghe Basin, whereas crustal thickening redistributes the concentrated layer of radioactive elements, which compensates for the relatively low heat production of the basal granite and serves as an important supplement to the heat of the HDR resources. The negative effect is that the downward curvature of the lithospheric upper mantle caused by crustal thickening leads to a small mantle heat flow component. As a result, the heat flows in the Qiaboqia Valley and Guide Plain of the Gonghe Basin are 106.2 and 77.6 mW/m2, respectively, in which the crust‐mantle heat flow ratio of the former is 3.12:1, indicating a notably anomalous intracrustal thermal structure. In contrast, the crust‐mantle heat flow ratio in the Guide Plain is 1.84:1, which reflects a typical hot crust‐cold mantle thermal structure. The Guide Plain and Zhacanggou area show the same increasing temperature trend with depth, which reflects that their geothermal backgrounds and deep high‐temperature environments are similar. These results provide important insight on the heat source mechanism of HDR resource formation in the Tibetan Plateau and useful guidance for future HDR resource exploration projects and target sites selection in similar areas.

Geothermal power generation and positive impact in the greater bay area: a case study of Huizhou City, Guangdong Province

“…Considering that the intrusion of the rock mass exceeds 137 million years, the cumulative heat production amounts to 4.38 × 10 12 tons of standard coal energy. In 2021, the total energy consumption in Huizhou City was approximately 3 × 10 7 tons of standard coal, which is equivalent to 1.46 × 10 5 times the energy consumption in the same year 25 , 26 .…”

Hydrothermal Systems Characterized by Crustal Thermally‐dominated Structures of Southeastern China

“…Lithospheric thermal structure is a critical aspect to grasp, in order to understand the geodynamic process (Wan et al, 1989;Furlong and Chapman, 2013;Lin et al, 2021;Wang et al, 2021). The measured heat flow and radiogenic heat production obtained from boreholes provide parameters for construction of the lithospheric thermal structure and the lithospheric thermal thickness.…”

“…In particular, the general characteristics of the occurrence of hydrothermal systems in SE China lacks investigation. Previous studies declared that the complex fracture system resulted in differential thermal conductivity of rocks, which might be the main factor causing the discrepancy between measured and expected results (Lin et al, 2020). Some studies argued that the thickness of covered sedimentary rock is significant for hydrothermal systems in SE China (Xiao et al, 2019;Li T X et al, 2020).…”

“…Regional faults in SE China play an important role in heat conduction (Lin et al, 2020;Tannock et al, 2020). Therefore, the investigation of high-temperature resources at shallow depths in SE China primarily consists of the search for heat-conducting structures.…”

Seismic Geothermal Resource Exploration based on CPU/GPU Collaborative Parallel Prestack Time Migration

“…With the rapid development of modern construction, the contradiction between energy supply and demand has become increasingly prominent. Geothermal energy, as a new type of clean energy, has gradually been developed and utilized (Majorowicz and Grasby, 2014;Farhad et al, 2020;Longa et al, 2020;Wang et al, 2020Wang et al, , 2021Lin et al, 2021). However, due to complex geological structures and the difficulty of determining burial depth, exploration for geothermal energy has become the primary problem in the development and utilization of geothermal resources (Aref and Nassir, 2014;Alexandros and Rien, 2017;Sofí a et al, 2020).…”