Temperature determination beneath volcanoes using geophysical-petrological modelling

 

PhD Candidate: Bernard Asare Owusu

Supervisor: Dr Emma Chambers (DIAS), Dr Aline Melo (UCD)

Funded by: SFI-IRC Pathway Program 

Abstract:

Determining subsurface temperature is critical for our understanding of the geothermal potential of a region and de-risking access to this renewable energy resource. However, directly measuring temperature in boreholes is expensive and often not practical at depth or across large lateral areas. Recent inversion and forward modelling programs have been developed which allow the estimation of sub-surface temperature throughout the crust and mantle, based on multiple geophysical and petrological datasets. This petrological-geophysical coupling is opening up exciting opportunities for characterising the thermal structure of the subsurface. The question remains: how good are these models? Do the outputs accurately characterise  subsurface temperature distributions? At the Krafla geothermal region in Iceland, there exist multiple measures of subsurface temperature and a host of other geophysical datasets that can be used to independently estimate sub-surface temperature distributions, providing a unique opportunity to quantitatively assess the performance of these new petrological-geophysical approaches to temperature estimation for geothermal exploration.