Updated Heat Flow of Alaska
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Updated Heat Flow of Alaska New Insights into the Thermal Regime Final Report to the Alaska Energy Authority and Alaska Center for Energy and Power 6/15/2013 Joseph F. Batir , David D. Blackwell, and Maria C. Richards SMU Geothermal Laboratory Roy M. Huffington Department of Earth Sciences Southern Methodist University Dallas, TX 75275 Contents Abstract ..................................................................................................................................... 2 Introduction ............................................................................................................................... 3 Background ............................................................................................................................... 4 Generalized Geology of Alaska ............................................................................................ 4 Geothermal Research in Alaska ............................................................................................ 5 Methodology ............................................................................................................................. 7 Heat Flow Data Collection and Calculation .......................................................................... 7 Gridding Procedure ............................................................................................................. 11 Data Collection ....................................................................................................................... 12 New Mine Data ................................................................................................................... 12 Oil and Gas BHT ................................................................................................................. 18 Published Data ..................................................................................................................... 18 Results ..................................................................................................................................... 20 Conclusions ............................................................................................................................. 20 Future work ......................................................................................................................... 22 Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................. 23 References ............................................................................................................................... 23 Appendices ............................................................................................................................ A-1 Appendix A. 2013 Heat Flow Measurements within Alaska ............................................ A-1 Appendix B. Conductivity Values Collected for Heat Flow Calculation ......................... B-1 Appendix C. Limitation and Assumptions Related to Sparse Data .................................. C-1 Appendix D. Regions of Interest for Future Geothermal Energy Exploration ................. D-1 Abstract The 2013 update to the Heat Flow Map of Alaska (HFMAK) is described, including the methodology for new data collection, processing and gridding of the heat flow, volcanoes, and hot springs data, and conclusions drawn from the expanded dataset. The previous version of the Heat Flow Map of Alaska was published in 2004 with the Geothermal Map of North America by the Southern Methodist University Geothermal Laboratory. This map represents heat flow, which is only one of the three necessary parts of a geothermal system. This map should be considered a reconnaissance study to guide future preliminary research. The 2004 map had sparse data primarily located on the North Slope and in selective areas known to have anomalously high heat flow. This sampling bias towards higher heat flow produced a high heat flow band over much of Alaska that led to faulty interpretations. Between 2004 and 2007, research was focused on specific locations, such as Chena Hot Springs, to assess site specific geothermal potential. For this report, 91 new sites were reviewed, of which 55 were considered of high enough confidence to be included in this version of the HFMAK. All 55 new points were collected during the summer of 2011 and 2012. Of these 55 new points, 45 are based on hydrocarbon exploration Bottom Hole Temperature (BHT) data, two were published data, five were based on data from mineral exploration sites, and three were published temperature data that could be used to calculate heat flow values. Results from this edition of the HFMAK suggest heat flow throughout Alaska is locally variable. While a general trend of high heat flow is represented, the heat flow is not definitively assessed outside the areas of the calculated sites. A geologic region that illustrates this point using the new map is the Aleutian Volcanic Arc. A priori knowledge suggested the entire Alaska Peninsula to have high heat flow and be viable for geothermal power generation. The new data show variable heat flow ranging from high values above 120 mW/m2 to values below 40 mW/m2. This variability indicates that the geothermal energy potential throughout the Alaska Peninsula is not uniform and emphasizes the natural heterogeneity of heat flow, compounded by the complex geology of Alaska. Interior Alaska is one section shown to have more variation than shown previously. New data collected between the Alaska Range and the Brooks Range vary between 61 mW/m2 and 106 mW/m2. This range of heat flow is similar to the Basin and Range Provence in the conterminous United States, suggesting that geothermal systems within interior Alaska would be heterogeneously located analogous to the Basin and Range Provence. More data need to be collected in specific areas of interest for site specific geothermal energy viability to be assessed. For this to occur, wide-spread data collection through collaboration with industry and federal and state groups should be a continual process to further define the areas for most productive exploration for geothermal resources within Alaska. 2 Introduction This report describes the 2013 update to the Heat Flow Map of Alaska (HFMAK), including the methodology for new data collection, processing and gridding of data, and conclusions drawn from the expanded dataset. The previous version of the Heat Flow Map of Alaska was published in 2004 with the Geothermal Map of North America by the Southern Methodist University Geothermal Laboratory (Figure 1). The 2004 map, however, had sparse data; the available data were primarily located on the North Slope and in selective areas known to have anomalously high heat flow. This sampling bias towards higher heat flow produced a high heat flow band over much of Alaska that supported the back-arc heat flow theory suggested for interior Alaska. Between 2004 and 2007 research was focused on specific locations, such as Chena Hot Springs, to assess site specific geothermal potential. For this report, 91 new sites were reviewed, of which 55 met the criteria to be included in this version of the HFMAK. All 55 new points were collected during the summer of 2011 and 2012. Of these 55 new points, 45 are based on hydrocarbon exploration Bottom Hole Temperature (BHT) data, two were heat flow values, five were data from mineral exploration sites, and three were published temperature data that were used to calculate heat flow. Volcanoes, hot springs, and earthquake locations were overlaid on the map to assist in geologically constraining the heat flow contouring. Appendix A lists all map data including previously published heat flow values and new heat flow data with assigned quality that aided in contouring of the new map, as well as volcanoes and hot springs. Surface heat flow is one of the required data to determine the favorability of a site for geothermal energy production, but it is not all that is required. What is required for energy production is heat in place, fluid to move the heat, and pathways to move the fluid to the surface. Heat flow can be used to determine the amount of heat in place that can be extracted from the Earth, but does not give a good indication of presence of fluid or pathways to move the fluid for a given location. When these additional factors are taken into account, the heat flow map can be considered a favorability map for geothermal system potential: areas with a higher heat flow are suggested to have the heat in place and therefore have better potential to host a geothermal system as opposed to areas of lower heat flow. 3 Figure 1. 2004 Heat Flow Map of Alaska. Data on land are labeled with diamonds. Note that data within Alaska are focused on the North Slope, with low data density elsewhere to constrain the contouring of heat flow through the interior part of the state (Blackwell and Richards, 2004). Background Generalized Geology of Alaska The geology of Alaska is complex and challenging because of an intricate history of extension, subduction, deformation, sediment deposition, and volcanism. The geologic history, therefore, is typically differentiated into composite terranes that may or may not be related with respect to the depositional/deformational episode(s) during which each terrane was formed (Plafker and Berg, 1994). For new heat flow sites, the geology was simplified into volcanic and non-volcanic localities where lithology logs and/or thermal conductivity