Here at MeV, we’ve been shallow temperature survey fans for some time, see the first article we wrote on the subject from the 2007 Stanford Geothermal conference. Well, this week, the Great Basin Center for Geothermal Energy is releasing information on the discovery of new geothermal resources by shallow temperature survey (and other confirming means.) They’ve had a number of successes, but Teel’s Marsh is interesting.
It’s well known in geothermal circles that the Basin and Range province is an area of relatively thin crust with many faults that allow for upwelling of hot material from the mantel that transfer heat to surrounding rock formations. Also, since the BR province is surrounded by mountains, the runoff provides a charging system for underground hydrothermal systems, most of which are “blind” – meaning there is little or no surface manifestation of the hot water/steam below the surface. Hot springs, geysers, mudpots, tufa towers, sinter deposits, etc. all provide hints about what may lie beneath the surface.
At Teel’s Marsh, it’s simply a blind resource as there are no known thermal springs or wells, but there is a borate-rich evaporate crust on the playa. The 2m temperature surveys have uncovered anomalies that need further exploration – this is really important since there isn’t much actual geothermal resource exploration happening, most development activities are occurring with discoveries from mineral and petrochemical exploration discoveries of hot water from before the 1970’s. The images below are from the Great Basin Center for Geothermal Energy presentation on their discoveries.
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