Abstract
Exploration of the geothermal resources in the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei region has been kept for tens of years, and the recent success of geothermal exploration in the Xiongxian County provides a new model for the utilization of geothermal resources in this area. This research integrates the formation of temperature obtained from hydrocarbon drilling, experiments of reservoirs’ micro-characteristics and physical property, and employs the previous works on the regional geological settings to investigate the geothermal reservoirs and geothermal status. The microphotography indicates that the reservoir space is dominated by supergene karst in the Wumishan Formation which is mainly controlled by the topography when the interval emerged. The groundwater in the Pre-Paleogene has the similar composition of the hydrogen and oxygen isotope with the atmospheric precipitation, and the salinity of the groundwater has an increasing trend from the Taihang Mountain and the Yanshan Mountain to the depocenters, which indicates the groundwater originates from the atmospheric precipitation of the Taihang Mountain and the Yanshan Mountain and transports to the depocenters. The thermal conductivity of the lower carbonate rocks is much higher than the upper clastic intervals. This difference makes the upper clastic intervals of the Paleogene and the Neogene good seals for geothermal reservoirs and leads to the regional anomaly of the terrestrial heat flow: the intrabasin highs have a thicker thickness of the Pre-Paleogene carbonate deposition with high thermal conductivity, which results in high efficient thermal transmission and high terrestrial heat flow. Consequently, this research suggests that the intrabasin highs and slopes are the favourable areas for geothermal exploration with reservoirs of good quality, high terrestrial heat flow and efficient groundwater supply, and several areas were selected to be the potential targets for the Wumishan Formation and the Pre-Paleogene.
Highlights
The demand for clean energy is increasingly pressing, because the traditional fossil fuels are finite resources and lead to many environmental problems
Since the Wumishan Formation is the representative geothermal reservoir in the developed geothermal fields, this paper studied the lithology and reservoir space of the Wumishan Formation
The groundwater in the Pre-Paleogene, the thermal gradient and the terrestrial heat flow (HF) were investigated in this study, and the Wumishan Formation was selected as the representative geothermal reservoir to give an overview of the Pre-Paleogene geothermal reservoirs of the carbonate rocks
Summary
The demand for clean energy is increasingly pressing, because the traditional fossil fuels (coal and oil) are finite resources and lead to many environmental problems. For these reasons, hydro-, solar and wind energies have already been used widely, and geothermal resources focus minds (Bertani, 2005; Bilgen et al, 2008; Lund et al, 2005). It indicates that the Wumishan Formation of the Middle-Upper Proterozoic, Cambrian and Ordovician are the main bearing formations for geothermal exploration, and the thermal gradient ranges from 8C/100 m to 1.29C/100 m. The exploration of these geothermal fields is isolated, and the regional geothermal features are not clear, which blocks the further utilization of the geothermal resources in the BTH region
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