Effects of random horizontal variations in radiogenic heat source distribution on its relationship with heat flow

Abstract

Lateral conduction resulting from variations in the radiogenic heat generation is known to modify the heat flow‐heat generation relation and to bias the evaluation of thickness of radiogenic heat sources. In this paper a statistical approach is used to account for a random horizontal variation in radiogenic heat sources, whereas their vertical variation is simulated by simple models. Relationships between spectral densities and autocorrelation functions of heat generation and heat flow are obtained. When the horizontal scale length of heat generation distribution is not much larger than the vertical one, lateral heat conduction modifies drastically the statistical properties of heat flow distribution, and the apparent thickness obtained from the heat flow‐heat generation plot is highly reduced. The procedure is applied to a set of actual heat flow and heat generation data recorded over New Hampshire, U.S.A. Heat production data and especially heat flow data are affected by different types of noise and errors which can be analyzed through their autocorrelation functions. The depth scale of heat generation deduced empirically does not seem to have much relation with any geophysical dimension.