Heat flow through the bottom of the inner seas and lakes in the USSR

Abstract

Analysis of heat flow measurements on the sea bottom and in deep water areas inside the USSR has made it possible to correlate the regional thermal anomalies with different tectonic structures. A high heat flow was observed in the Baikal Lake rift zone, reaching 1.8 – 3.0 HFU. Many measurements performed in the Black Sea have shown a heat flow which is close to the average terrestrial value. The development of new equipment and methods allowed geophysical investigations to be conducted from a drifting iceberg over the many ridges and abyssal plains of the Arctic Ocean. The heat field over Mendeleev ridge is stable and heat flow values are close to normal ones. A stable anomaly is observed over Lomonosov ridge where the heat flow reaches 1.8–2.1 HFU. Sharply varying heat flow values ranging from 0.8 to 3.7 HFU were obtained inside one of the rift valleys of Hackel ridge, which is a specific mid-oceanic ridge. Modern equipment makes it possible to obtain operative heat flow measurements and to process the results acquired.