The Technical Challenges and Scientific Results of the Salton Sea Scientific Drilling Project, USA: The Relevance of Geothermal Experience to Ultradeep Drilling

Abstract

Although the Salton Sea Scientific Drilling Project does not involve ultradeep drilling, some of the experience and technological advances gained in drilling, testing and sampling this hot, hypersaline, hydrothermal system may well be applicable to future ultradeep continental drilling projects. The SSSDP is investigating an active geothermal field on the delta of the Colorado River, at the northern end of the Gulf of California, and in the Salton Trough of southern California and northern Mexico. This is a region which forms a tectonic transition from the divergent plate boundary of the East Pacific Rise, in the south, to the transform plate boundary of the San Andreas Fault in the north. This tectonic regime is one of the few places where an oceanic spreading center is acting on a continent today (Elders et al. 1972).KeywordsKola PeninsulaUnited States Geological SurveyGeothermal FieldFlow TestDrill StringThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.