The structural architecture of the Los Humeros volcanic complex and geothermal field

Norini, Gianluca; Carrasco-Núñez, Gerardo; Corbo-Camargo, Fernando; Lermo, J.; Rojas, Javier Hernández; Castro, César; Bonini, Marco; Montanari, Domenico; Corti, Giacomo; Moratti, Giovanna; Piccardi, Luigi; Chavez, Guillermo; Zuluaga, Maria Clara; Ramírez, Miguel; Cedillo, Fidel

doi:10.1016/j.jvolgeores.2019.06.010

Cited by 61 publications

(127 citation statements)

References 51 publications

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“…The current morphology of the caldera complex is the consequence of two main collapses, the first caused by an explosive rhyolitic eruption (~0.46 Ma) that formed the quasi-circular 15-20 km-wide Los Humeros caldera, which was followed by the eruption of the Zaragoza ignimbrite (~0.1-0.14 Ma) that allowed the development of the 7-10 km-wide Los Potreros caldera, nested within Los Humeros caldera (e.g., [37][38][39]). The much smaller Xalapazco crater also formed (~0.02-0.04 Ma) within Los Potreros caldera, followed by more recent minor eruptions and production of extensive, morphologically youthful, basaltic lava flows (see Section 4.3 for a detailed geological map of the geothermal field).…”

Section: Los Humeros Caldera Complexmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Nevertheless, regional tectonics and the occurrence of high magnitude earthquakes over the last few years (i.e., after the period observed with ENVISAT data) contributed to damaging some of the housing and public buildings within the geothermal field, for instance in the village of Humeros. Two of the most recent and significant earthquakes that occurred in the geothermal field include the Mw 2.0 earthquake recorded at 1.6 km depth on 16th August 2015 and the already recalled Mw 4.2 earthquake recorded on 8th February 2016 [25,26,39]. Evidence of rockfalls triggered along Los Humeros fault is visible just outside the southern outskirts of Humeros.…”

Section: Surface Deformation and Geothermal Exploitation At Los Humerosmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Wide-Area InSAR Survey of Surface Deformation in Urban Areas and Geothermal Fields in the Eastern Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt, Mexico

et al. 2019

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This paper provides the first wide-area Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) survey of the whole eastern Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt (42,200 km2). The aims are to identify ground deformation hotspots within major urbanized areas and rural valleys, establish baselines in geothermal exploration sites, and analyze deformation at geothermal exploitation sites and its relationship with energy production. The whole 2003–2010 ENVISAT C-band SAR archive available over the region was processed with the Small BAseline Subset (SBAS) InSAR method to retrieve over 840,000 coherent targets and estimate their ground displacement rates and time series. Land subsidence hotspots due to aquifer drawdown are found within the city of Puebla (up to −53 mm/year vertical rates, groundwater pumping for industrial use), Tlaxcala and Apizaco (−17 mm/year, industrial and public), the valley of Tecamachalco (−22 mm/year, agricultural), Tulancingo (−55 mm/year, public, industrial and agricultural), and in the eastern Mexico City metropolitan area (−44 mm/year, agricultural). The baseline for the Acoculco caldera complex shows widespread ground stability. Conversely, localized subsidence patterns of −5 to −10 mm/year exist around Las Derrumbadas and Cerro Pinto in the Serdán-Oriental basin, due to intense groundwater pumping for agriculture. A well-defined land subsidence area with −11 mm/year maximum rates is found at Los Humeros volcanic complex within Los Potreros collapse, correlating well with energy production infrastructure location and historical steam production rates. Field surveys carried out in Acoculco and Los Humeros in 2018 provide supporting evidence for the identification of hydrothermal manifestations, and understanding of the landscape and surface deformation patterns within the geothermal fields.

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Section: Los Humeros Caldera Complexmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Surface Deformation and Geothermal Exploitation At Los Humerosmentioning

confidence: 99%

Wide-Area InSAR Survey of Surface Deformation in Urban Areas and Geothermal Fields in the Eastern Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt, Mexico

et al. 2019

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“…1) (e.g. Dávila-Harris and Carrasco-Núñez, 2014; Norini et al, 2015Norini et al, , 2019GEMex, 2019). In all these outcrops, the faults invariably displace the Holocene Cuicuiltic Member and the underlying lava and pyroclastic units ( Figs.…”

Section: Las Papas and Las Viboras Faultsmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…2 Location and relative age of faulting: field data and thermal remote sensing U2020 analysed the occurrence and relative age of faulting, and proposed a new interpretation of some structures identified by previous works, by studying faults and hydrothermal alteration in the Holocene Cuicuiltic Member unit (Ferriz and Mahood, 1984;Arellano et al, 2003;Dávila-Harris and Carrasco-Núñez, 2014;Norini et al, 2015Norini et al, , 2019. The Cuicuiltic Member blankets the Los Potreros caldera floor ( Fig.…”

Section: /12mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The Cuicuiltic Member has been considered an ideal marker layer for documenting Holocene faulting and stratigraphy in the caldera complex, because of the contrasting black and white colours of the fallout deposits composing the unit (e.g. Ferriz and Mahood, 1984;Dávila-Harris and Carrasco-Núñez, 2014;Norini et al, 2015Norini et al, , 2019GEMex, 2019; U2020) (Figs. 1 and 2).…”

Section: /12mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Comment on Estimating the depth and evolution of intrusions at resurgent calderas: Los Humeros (Mexico) by Urbani et al. (2020)

Norini¹,

Groppelli²

2020

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Abstract. A multiple shallow–seated magmatic intrusions model has been proposed by Urbani et al. (2020) for the resurgence of the Los Potreros caldera floor, in the Los Humeros Volcanic Complex. This model predicts (1) the occurrence of localized bulges in the otherwise undeformed caldera floor, and (2) that the faults corresponding to different bulges exhibit different spatial and temporal evolution. Published data and a morphological analysis show that these two conditions are not met at Los Potreros caldera. A geothermal well (H4), located at the youngest supposed bulge (Loma Blanca) for which Urbani et al. (2020) calculated an intrusion depth (425±170 m), doesn’t show any thermal and lithological evidence of such a shallow–seated cryptodome. Finally, published stratigraphic data and radiometric dating disprove the proposed common genesis of Holocene resurgence faulting and viscous lavas extruded in the centre of the caldera. Even if recent shallow intrusions may exist in the area, published data indicate that the pressurization of the LHVC magmatic/hydrothermal system driving resurgence faulting occurs at greater depth. Thus, we suggest that the model and calculation proposed by Urbani et al. (2020) are unlikely to have any relevance to the location, age and emplacement depth of magma intrusions driving resurgence at the Los Potreros caldera.

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Hydrothermal alteration of surficial rocks at Los Humeros geothermal field, Mexico: a magnetic susceptibility approach

et al. 2023

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Utility of the geothermal surface manifestations (GSMs; thermal springs, geysers, fumaroles, and zones of hydrothermal alteration) in the studies related to the geothermal exploration is widely recognized. The identification of hydrothermally altered rocks and zones of alteration is very important because their presence indicates the type and size of the geothermal reservoir and existing thermal conditions. The use of traditional methods (i.e., geochemistry, mineralogy, and petrography) requires expensive equipment, time-consuming, and laborious sample preparation methods. Some of the rock magnetic parameters, like magnetic susceptibility (χlf) and percentage of frequency-dependent magnetic susceptibility (χfd%), are potential to become effective additional tools in identification of the hydrothermal rocks during the initial stages of geothermal exploration. Three chemical methods, Chemical Index of Alteration (CIA), loss-on-ignition (LOI), and the binary plot (CaO + Na2O + K2O) vs. (Fe2O3 + MnO + MgO), along with two rock magnetic methods, χlf and the binary plot (χlf vs. χfd%), are applied to nine intensively altered andesite reference rocks. All the five methods have correctly identified that 99 out of the total 350 studied rocks are altered. More altered rocks are distributed surrounding the several faults in the study area. Various faults (e.g., Los Humeros fault and the Loma Blanca fault) favor fluid flow and present strong hydrothermal alteration at the surface. However, there are no altered rocks on the surface region between the E-W trending Las Papas and Las Viboras faults. The presence of only the deeper fluid pathway toward the east in the surroundings of these two faults result into the almost absence of hydrothermal alteration along their strike at the surface. Consequently, there are not many altered rocks observed surroundings these two faults at the surface. These features suggest that the surface hydrothermal alteration at Los Humeros Geothermal Field (LHGF) is controlled by faults. χlf and χfd% are reliable, simple to measure, fast, cost-effective, and have the potential to become reliable additional tools for future exploration studies.

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The structural architecture of the Los Humeros volcanic complex and geothermal field

Cited by 61 publications

References 51 publications

Wide-Area InSAR Survey of Surface Deformation in Urban Areas and Geothermal Fields in the Eastern Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt, Mexico

Wide-Area InSAR Survey of Surface Deformation in Urban Areas and Geothermal Fields in the Eastern Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt, Mexico

Comment on Estimating the depth and evolution of intrusions at resurgent calderas: Los Humeros (Mexico) by Urbani et al. (2020)

Hydrothermal alteration of surficial rocks at Los Humeros geothermal field, Mexico: a magnetic susceptibility approach

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