An investigation of the relationship between the geology of indonesian sedimentary basins and heat flow density

Abstract

Geothermal data, collected from 929 wells drilled by oil companies in 20 Tertiary basins of Indonesia, have been related to the geology and tectonics of the area. It is found that the thermal conductivity increases with the depth of burial and degree of compaction in both transgressive and regressive sediments but decreases with increases in impurities and heterogeneous grain sizes. The temperature gradient is controlled mainly by the depth and temperature of a heat source beneath a basin. Very high heat-flow densities (> 125 mW m −2) found in central Sumatra, South Sumatra, Salawati Basin and Bintuni Basin may be caused by relatively shallow magmatic diapirism.