Slowly moving thermal/mineral waters in deep crystalline basement

Abstract

Crystalline basement can contain notable quantities of thermal/mineral waters. Knowledge about their movement and it characteristics (fluxes, velocities, trajectories) is of great relevance for subjects like waste disposal or geothermal resources. Geothermal methods enable to quantify these flow characteristics. The use and potential of several methods is demonstrated at three sites, all from Hercynian basement in Western Europe. The results show rather uniform characteristics: Darcy flow velocities on the order of 10−11–10−10 m s−1; the domain of flow ranges down to 5–7 km depth.