Minnesota Heat Flow and Geothermal Potential
Abstract
Radiogenic heat production, bedrock geology, gravity, magnetics, and heat flow were combined to study heat flow and geothermal energy potential in Minnesota. Heat production was determined from one-hundred 800 kg samples collected at outcrops and from drill cores by gamma ray spectrometry. Small splits of the samples were also analyzed by chemical methods for K, U, and Th. Heat production averaged 2.6 W m-1 K-1 ± 2.0 for 42 felsic samples and 0.9 W m-1 K-1 ± 0.6 for 58 mafic samples. Areal variation in heat production measured with a portable gamma ray spectrometer was compared to bedrock geology and gravity and magnetic anomaly patterns. Gravity lows and magnetic highs correlate with higher heat production and vice versa. Prior to this study heat flow was reported for only four borehole sites in Minnesota. Those sites were located in Keweenawan mafic rocks of the mid-continent rift and heat flow values averaged 39 ± 6 mW m-2. These low heat flows are consistent with a heat flow study conducted in Lake Superior that showed a trough of low heat flow (19.2 - 41.0 mW m-2) along the northern edge of the lake. Thirty-one new heat flow determinations in the mafic rocks obtained from borehole temperature measurements in mining holes average (34.1 mW m-2 ± 1.9 mW m-2). However, paleoclimate signals evident in the temperature vs. depth profiles indicate that the temperature gradients are at least 27 percent low and heat flow is likely 46.7 mW m-2. Based on a reduced heat flow of 32 mW m-2 and a depth parameter of 10 km, the heat flow heat production relation yields a heat flow value of 58 mW m-2 in the felsic regions in Minnesota. These heat flow values suggest that EGS with a binary power plant would be achievable in the felsic regions.
- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2011
- Bibcode:
- 2011AGUFMIN33C1482G
- Keywords:
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- 1999 INFORMATICS / General or miscellaneous;
- 8130 TECTONOPHYSICS / Heat generation and transport