Geochemical and isotope hydrological characterisation of geothermal resources at Godavari valley, India

Abstract

Thermal waters at the Godavari valley geothermal field are located in the Khammam district of the Telangana state, India. The study area consists of several thermal water manifestations having temperature in the range 36–76 °C scattered over an area of ~35 km2. The thermal waters are Na–HCO3 type with moderate silica and TDS concentrations. In the present study, detailed geochemical (major and trace elements) and isotope hydrological investigations are carried out to understand the hydrogeochemical evolution of these thermal waters. Correlation analysis and principal component analysis (PCA) are performed to classify the thermal waters and to identify the different geochemical processes controlling the thermal water geochemistry. From correlation matrix, it is seen that TDS and EC of the thermal springs are mainly controlled by HCO3 and Na ions. In PCA, thermal waters are grouped into two distinct clusters. One cluster represents thermal waters from deeper aquifer and other one from shallow aquifer. Lithium and boron concentrations are found to be similar followed by rubidium and caesium concentrations. Different ternary plots reveal rock–water interaction to be the dominant mechanism for controlling trace element concentrations. Stable isotopes (δ18O, δ2H) data indicate the meteoric origin of the thermal waters with no appreciable oxygen-18 shift. The low tritium values of the samples originating from deeper aquifer reveal the long residence time (>50 years) of the recharging waters. XRD results of the drill core samples show that quartz constitutes the major mineral phase, whereas kaolinite, dolomite, microcline, calcite, mica, etc. are present as minor constituents. Quartz geothermometer suggests a reservoir temperature of 100 ± 20 °C which is in good agreement with the values obtained from K–Mg and Mg-corrected K–Mg–Ca geothermometers.