Detection of groundwater flux changes in response to two large earthquakes using long-term bedrock temperature time series

Liu, Qiongying; Chen, Shunyun; Chen, Lichun; Liu, Peixun; Yang, Zhuzhuan; Lü, Lili

doi:10.1016/j.jhydrol.2020.125245

Cited by 3 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 67 publications

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“…Finally, we calculated the average fluid velocity for many years, which represents the stable change and cannot show the fluid changes in the short term. In fact, in the future, the process of dynamic change in the fluid velocity can be obtained by using a multidepth temperature-depth sequence (Munz and Schmidt, 2017;Liu et al, 2020), and the convective heat flux component can be corrected more accurately.…”

Section: The Advantages and Limitations Of The Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Estimation of terrestrial heat flow in hydrothermally active areas based on long-term bedrock temperature observations: a case study of northwestern Yunnan, China

et al. 2023

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Terrestrial heat flow plays an important role in the study of plate tectonics, geothermal resource exploration and earthquake genesis. The measurement of terrestrial heat flow usually utilizes deep boreholes, which is expensive and inconvenient for high altitudes or mountainous terrain. In hydrothermally active areas, the temperature distribution is disturbed by heat convection, resulting in difficulty in obtaining conductive heat flow. In fact, heat can be used as a tracer to quantify groundwater flow. This article presents a method for calculating terrestrial heat flow suitable for hydrothermally active areas, which can correct the influence of groundwater flow to obtain the conductive heat flow reflecting the deep thermal background. The method uses temperature-time series at multiple depths of the shallow crust to calculate the groundwater flow rate. The convective heat flux component is then removed based on information on groundwater movement, and the conductive heat flow can be acquired. The feasibility of the method is verified by a theoretical model. This method has been applied to estimate terrestrial heat flows in northwestern Yunnan, China, which is a hydrothermally active area. The heat flow obtained through our method range from 54.5 to 130.3 mW/m2, with an average of 94.5 mW/m2, consistent with the high-quality measured heat flow values in the boreholes. This study provides new perspectives for acquiring terrestrial heat flow in areas that are affected by fluid activities.

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Section: The Advantages and Limitations Of The Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Estimation of terrestrial heat flow in hydrothermally active areas based on long-term bedrock temperature observations: a case study of northwestern Yunnan, China

et al. 2023

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“…Under the influence of terrain and monsoon circulation, the area possesses a subtropical climate. Local meteorological records show that the annual temperature ranges from −14 • C to 28 • C, with an average of 8 • C [22].…”

Section: Station Informationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In the case of pure thermal conduction, the amplitude of the periodic temperature series decays exponentially with depth, and the phase is linearly delayed as heat transfers downwards from the surface. However, the groundwater movement can alter this pattern of amplitude and phase variation with depth compared to the conditions of pure thermal conduction [17,22,24]. Therefore, information on groundwater movement can be effectively determined by analyzing the amplitude and phase characteristics of periodic temperature variations at different depths.…”

Section: Analytical Solutions For Obtaining Groundwater Flow Velociti...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Acquisition of Spatial and Temporal Characteristics of Shallow Groundwater Movement Based on Long-Term Temperature Time Series in the Kangding Area, Eastern Tibetan Plateau

Zhang

Liu

Chen

et al. 2023

Water

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Heat has been widely used as a groundwater tracer to determine groundwater flow direction and velocity in a way that is ubiquitous, low-cost, environmentally friendly, and easy to use. However, temperature observations are generally short-term and small-scale, meaning they may not be able to reflect long-term changes in the characteristics of groundwater movement. In this study, we utilize 515 days of temperature data, collected from four measurement points in the Kangding area of the eastern Tibetan Plateau, in order to determine the spatial and temporal distribution of groundwater flow velocities using different analytical heat tracing methods. An analysis is conducted to evaluate the impact of thermal parameter uncertainties on the calculation of flow velocity, and a comparison is undertaken between the results of the phase, amplitude, and combined amplitude-phase methods. We subsequently discuss the relationship between flow velocity changes and precipitation. The results show that the estimated flow velocity is more susceptible to the volumetric heat capacity of the saturated sediment than it is to thermal conductivity. The phase method is more suitable for use in calculations in the study area, indicating that precipitation significantly impacts the flow velocity and that this impact is more pronounced in areas with flat terrain compared to areas with significant variation in elevation. Our research provides a comparative study of the heat tracing methods in areas with varied terrains and offers new evidence for the impact of precipitation and topography on groundwater infiltration.

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Determining hydraulic diffusivity from ambient noise in subsurface flow rate and temperature data

Fulton

Brodsky

2023

Geophysical Journal International

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Summary Determining the properties that control fluid flow and pressure migration through rocks is essential for understanding groundwater, energy reservoirs, and fault zones. However, direct measurements of these properties underground generally require expensive and invasive processes such as pumping large volumes of water in or out of the ground. These conventional methods may change the structure that they are trying to measure and do not resolve variations in space without complex, multiple experiments. Here we capitalize on the existing, natural fluctuations of pore pressure, flow and temperature that are always present underground, likely driven by tides, seismic waves and other noise in the Earth. We develop the theoretical framework to utilize these noises to determine hydrogeologic structure. We begin with prior work demonstrating a connection between cross-correlation and Green's functions for diffusive processes and illustrate how the existing theory could be used specifically for the case of inferring hydraulic diffusivity from closely spaced observations of pore pressure. We extend the current theory to include a capability for inferring Green's functions from closely spaced flow rate measurements, rather than pore pressure data. We then note that closely spaced temperature measurements are much more practical as an observational system, however, diffusive transport is likely not the dominant cause of high-frequency fluctuations of temperature in the Earth. Advective transport is a more plausible controlling factor and thus we need to incorporate advection into the theory and model the corresponding response functions. We therefore develop a semi-analytical method that includes advection and numerically compute the corresponding response function. We use these synthetics to illustrate how cross-correlation of ambient noise in subsurface temperature measurements carries information about hydraulic structure and show that it is possible to constrain hydraulic diffusivity values from cross-correlation of closely spaced continuous temperature measurements. This new method opens up the possibility of passive determination of reservoir properties with high spatial resolution from closely-spaced, continuous temperature data, which is a realistic deployment strategy that could be used in a wide variety of settings.

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Detection of groundwater flux changes in response to two large earthquakes using long-term bedrock temperature time series

Cited by 3 publications

References 67 publications

Estimation of terrestrial heat flow in hydrothermally active areas based on long-term bedrock temperature observations: a case study of northwestern Yunnan, China

Estimation of terrestrial heat flow in hydrothermally active areas based on long-term bedrock temperature observations: a case study of northwestern Yunnan, China

Acquisition of Spatial and Temporal Characteristics of Shallow Groundwater Movement Based on Long-Term Temperature Time Series in the Kangding Area, Eastern Tibetan Plateau

Determining hydraulic diffusivity from ambient noise in subsurface flow rate and temperature data

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