Investigation into regional thermal structure of the Thrace Region, NW Turkey, from aeromagnetic and borehole data

Abstract

The aeromagnetic values over the study region are relatively uniform except for a few anomalies in the northeastern and southwestern areas. Analyses of aeromagnetic data were performed in NW Turkey, in order to have a look into the subsurface regional thermal structure of the region. For this purpose, power spectra, reduced to pole (RTP), and band-pass filtered anomalies were produced using geophysical techniques. Band-pass filtered data were produced from the RTP aeromagnetic anomalies to isolate near surface and undesired deep effects. Based on the aeromagnetic data interpretation, the thickness of the magnetized crust, named the Curie Point Depth (CPD), in the study area lies between 9.7 and 20.3 km. The CPD estimates in the Thrace region of Turkey indicate two shallow CPD (SCPD1 and SCPD2) zones (the Istranca Massif and the Saros Graben area). The deep CPD are located within the Thrace Basin with sediment thickness of about 9 km. The corresponding heat flow map prepared from the averaged thermal conductivities and thermal gradients from the CPD reveals the existence of one low heat flow zone (75 mW/m2) over the center of Thrace Basin, and two high heat flow zones over the Istranca Masif (100–125 mW/m2) in the northern side and Saros Graben (125–135 mW/m2) areas in the southern side of the Thrace Basin.