Influence of plate tectonics on the locations of geothermal fields     

Hemendra Acharya 《Pure and Applied Geophysics》1983,121(5-6):853-867

A number of geothermal fields explored so far in the circum-Pacific area occur along spreading ridges and subduction zones in areas of young tectonism and volcanism. A preliminary analysis, however, suggests that these geothermal fields are not situated along entire segments of plate boundaries but only at certain locations. In convergent zones these locations are (i) near the ends of plate boundary segments or (ii) in transverse zones that divide plates into several blocks 100–1000 km long. The locations of geothermal fields therefore appear to be influenced by plate geometry and correspond to lateral breaks in the continuity of the underthrusting plate.  相似文献   

Possible geothermal resources in the Coast Plutonic Complex of southern British Columbia,Canada     

T. J. Lewis  A. S. Judge  J. G. Souther 《Pure and Applied Geophysics》1978,117(1-2):172-179

In southern British Columbia the terrestrial heat flow is low (44 mW m^–2) to the west of the Coast Plutonic Complex (CPC), average in CPC (50–60 mW m^–2),and high to the east(80–90 mW m^–2). The average heat flow in CPC and the low heat generation (less than 1 W m^–3) indicate that a relatively large amount of heat flows upwards into the crust which is generally quite cool. Until two million years ago the Explorer plate underthrust this part of the American plate, carrying crustal material into the mantle. Melted crustal rocks have produced the inland Pemberton and Garibaldi volcanic belts in the CPC.Meager Mountain, a volcanic complex in the CPC 150 km north of Vancouver, is a possible geothermal energy resource. It is the product of intermittent activity over a period of 4 My, the most recent eruption being the Bridge River Ash 2440 y B.P. The original explosive eruption produced extensive fracturing in the granitic basement, and a basal explosion breccia from the surface of a cold brittle crust. This breccia may be a geothermal reservoir. Other volcanic complexes in the CPC have a similar potential for geothermal energy.Earth Physics Contribution No. 704.  相似文献   

1.8–1.5-Ga links between the North and South Australian Cratons and the Early–Middle Proterozoic configuration of Australia     

David Giles  Peter G. Betts  Gordon S. Lister 《Tectonophysics》2004,380(1-2):27-41

The Archaean and Early–Middle Proterozoic (1.8–1.5 Ga) terranes of the North Australian Craton and the South Australian Craton are separated by 400 km of ca. 1.33–1.10-Ga orogenic belts and Phanerozoic sediments. However, there is a diverse range of geological phenomena that correlate between the component terranes of the two cratons and provide evidence for a shared tectonic evolution between approximately 1.8 and 1.5 Ga. In order to honour these correlations, we propose a reconstruction in which the South Australian Craton is rotated 52° counterclockwise about a pole located at 136°E and 25°S (present-day coordinates), relative to its current position. This reconstruction aligns the ca. 1.8–1.6-Ga orogenic belts preserved in the Arunta Inlier and the Gawler Craton and the ca. 1.6–1.5-Ga orogenic belts preserved in the Mount Isa Block and the Curnamona Province. Before 1.5 Ga, the South Australian Craton was not a separate entity but part of a greater proto-Australian continent which was characterised by accretion along a southward-migrating convergent margin (ca. 1.8–1.6 Ga) followed by convergence along the eastern margin (ca. 1.6–1.5 Ga). After 1.5 Ga, the South Australian Craton broke away from the North Australian Craton only to be reattached in its current position during the ca. 1.33–1.10 Ga-Albany–Fraser and Musgrave orogenies.  相似文献   

Lithospheric transition from the Variscan Iberian Massif to the Jurassic oceanic crust of the Central Atlantic     

M. Fernndez  I. Marzn  M. Torne 《Tectonophysics》2004,386(1-2):97-115

A 1000-km-long lithospheric transect running from the Variscan Iberian Massif (VIM) to the oceanic domain of the Northwest African margin is investigated. The main goal of the study is to image the lateral changes in crustal and lithospheric structure from a complete section of an old and stable orogenic belt—the Variscan Iberian Massif—to the adjacent Jurassic passive margin of SW Iberia, and across the transpressive and seismically active Africa–Eurasia plate boundary. The modelling approach incorporates available seismic data and integrates elevation, gravity, geoid and heat flow data under the assumptions of thermal steady state and local isostasy. The results show that the Variscan Iberian crust has a roughly constant thickness of 30 km, in opposition to previous works that propose a prominent thickening beneath the South Portuguese Zone (SPZ). The three layers forming the Variscan crust show noticeable thickness variations along the profile. The upper crust thins from central Iberia (about 20 km thick) to the Ossa Morena Zone (OMZ) and the NE region of the South Portuguese Zone where locally the thickness of the upper crust is <8 km. Conversely, there is a clear thickening of the middle crust (up to 17 km thick) under the Ossa Morena Zone, whereas the thickness of the lower crust remains quite constant (6 km). Under the margin, the thinning of the continental crust is quite gentle and occurs over distances of 200 km, resembling the crustal attitude observed further north along the West Iberian margins. In the oceanic domain, there is a 160-km-wide Ocean Transition Zone located between the thinned continental crust of the continental shelf and slope and the true oceanic crust of the Seine Abyssal Plain. The total lithospheric thickness varies from about 120 km at the ends of the model profile to less than 100 km below the Ossa Morena and the South Portuguese zones. An outstanding result is the mass deficit at deep lithospheric mantle levels required to fit the observed geoid, gravity and elevation over the Ossa Morena and South Portuguese zones. Such mass deficit can be interpreted either as a lithospheric thinning of 20–25 km or as an anomalous density reduction of 25 kg m⁻³ affecting the lower lithospheric levels. Whereas the first hypothesis is consistent with a possible thermal anomaly related to recent geodynamics affecting the nearby Betic–Rif arc, the second is consistent with mantle depletion related to ancient magmatic episodes that occurred during the Hercynian orogeny.  相似文献   

Geology, Geochemistry and U-Pb SHRIMP Age of the Tacloban Ophiolite Complex, Leyte Island (Central Philippines): Implications for the Existence and Extent of the Proto-Philippine Sea Plate     

Leilanie O. Suerte    Graciano P. Yumul  Jr  Rodolfo A. Tamayo  Jr  Carla B. Dimalanta    Mei-Fu Zhou  René C. Maury    Mireille Polvé  Cesar L. Balce 《Resource Geology》2005,55(3):207-216

Abstract. The oceanic basement of the Central Philippines is exposed in ophiolitic massifs the age and origin of which remain debated. The Tacloban Ophiolite Complex (TOC) outcrops as a NW-SE trending massif in the northeastern portion of Leyte Island, Central Philippines. It is unconformably overlain by sedimentary sequences dated to Late Miocene-Pliocene and Pleistocene volcaniclastic deposits on its eastern and western flanks, respectively. Field, petrographic and trace element data suggest a subduction-related origin for this ophiolite. Sensitive High Resolution Ion Microprobe (SHRIMP) U-Pb dating of zircons from a gabbro yielded Early Cretaceous magmatic age for the TOC, which is very much older than a previously reported whole rock K-Ar derived Eocene age. The Early Cretaceous age of the TOC limits its possible progenitor to the proto-Philippine Sea Plate. Correlation with other Cretaceous ophiolites in Central Philippines reveals the possible extent of the proto-Philippine Sea Plate remnants now exposed onland.  相似文献   

1999年9月21日台湾集集地震的震源参数综合判定     

陈祥熊 《福建地震》2005,(4)

本文利用半经验、半理论的方法对世界各主要地震汇集和研究机构所给出的集集主震基本震源参数进行了综合计算和评定。根据这些参数重新计算了集集主震的标量地震矩、破裂面积、应力降等。根据这些参数之间的内在联系,从地震分类学的角度,判定集集地震是发生于板块边缘的大地震。可供研究台湾岛上地震活动性以及台湾地区板块构造演化问题参考。  相似文献   

High precision slip distribution of the 1944 Tonankai earthquake inferred from tsunami waveforms: Possible slip on a splay fault     

Toshitaka Baba  Phil R. Cummins  Takane Hori  Yoshiyuki Kaneda 《Tectonophysics》2006,426(1-2):119

Inversion of tsunami waveforms is a well-established technique for estimating the slip distributions of subduction zone earthquakes, with some of the most detailed results having been obtained for earthquakes in the Nankai Trough, SW Japan. The present study, although it uses a method and tsunami waveform data set almost identical to previous study, aims to improve on previous work by using a more precise specification of initial conditions for the calculation of tsunami Green's functions. Specifically, we incorporated four improvements in the present study: (1) we used a realistic plate model based only on seismic survey results, and assumed it to be the fault plane of the 1944 Tonankai earthquake; (2) the smallest subfaults consistent with the long wavelength approximation were used in the tsunami inversion analysis; (3) we included the effect of horizontal displacement of the ocean bottom on tsunami generation; and (4) we performed a checkerboard resolution test. As obtained in previous studies, a zone of high slip (> 2.0 m) was resolved off the Shima Peninsula. However, the more precise calculation of tsunami Green's functions has revealed additional detail that was not evident in previous studies, which we demonstrate is resolvable and correlates with the position of known faults in the accretionary prism. While there was little or no slip near the trench axis in the eastern part of the rupture zone, there was up to 1.5 m of slip resolved within 30 km of the trough axis in the western part, along the coast of the Kii Peninsula. This troughward slip zone coincides with the position of a large splay fault mapped in multichannel reflection surveys. Furthermore, it is also clear that the upper edge of the Enshu fault off Shima and Atsumi peninsulas is consistent with the up-dip limit of slip in the eastern part of our model. We tested the possibility that slip occurred on the former splay fault instead of on the plate interface during the 1944 Tonankai earthquake, and find that slip on this splay fault is also consistent with the data, although we cannot distinguish whether slip was dominant on the splay fault or on the plate interface. We further suggest that the position of the Enshu fault may be determined by the subduction of topographic highs, and that such faults may have an important influence on the up-dip rupture limit of the 1944 Tonankai and, potentially, other subduction zone earthquakes.  相似文献   

Plate motion on Europa and nonrigid behavior of the Icy lithosphere: The Castalia Macula region     

G.W. Patterson  J.W. Head  R.T. Pappalardo 《Journal of Structural Geology》2006,28(12):2237

We have developed a generalized quantitative technique for determining the finite pole of rotation between two rigid plates and use it to critically examine differing reconstructions of a region surrounding a prominent dark spot on Europa, Castalia Macula. This region is located near the equator of Europa's trailing hemisphere and has been suggested as a site where crustal convergence may have occurred. Previous reconstructions of the region have indicated that a ridge set and/or a band-like complex that define a collection of tectonic plates in the region accommodated surface contraction. However, a critical examination of the differences between these reconstructions has been complicated by the lack of a finite pole of rotation for the plates involved in either reconstruction. We have applied our modeling technique, coupled with a detailed examination of the morphology and cross-cutting relationships involving this ridge set and band-like complex, to determine if a unique reconstruction exists for several tectonic plates in this region. The cross-cutting relationships involving the ridge set also allow us to test the general assumption that plates behave rigidly on Europa. Assuming rigid behavior, our results suggest that a unique reconstruction does exist, indicating the ridge set accommodated surface contraction. However, analysis performed to test the assumption of plate rigidity indicates that one or more of the plates in the region did not behave rigidly. This does not rule out surface contraction along the ridge set but does indicate that a component of nonrigid behavior must be considered.  相似文献   

3-D Simulation of Tectonic Loading at Convergent Plate Boundary Zones: Internal Stress Fields in Northeast Japan     

Chihiro Hashimoto  Mitsuhiro Matsu'ura 《Pure and Applied Geophysics》2006,163(9):1803-1817

The evidence of east-west compression in northeast Japan has been reported by many investigators on the basis of geodetic, geologic and geomorphic data, but its origin still remains far from understood. In the present study we have proposed a mechanical model of tectonic loading at convergent plate boundary zones, and demonstrated its validity through the numerical simulation of internal stress fields in northeast Japan with realistic 3-D geometry of plate interfaces. At convergent plate boundary zones, in general, a part of plate convergence is consumed by steady slip along plate interfaces, and the remaining part by inelastic deformation (seismic faulting, aseismic faulting, and active folding) of overriding plates. Such a plate boundary process to be called ``partial collision' can be quantitatively described by introducing a collision rate defined as c = 1 − steady slip rate at plate interfaces/plate convergence rate. By this definition, we can simply represent the mechanical process of partial collision, which includes total subduction (c = 0) and total collision (c = 1) as two extreme cases, in terms of steady slip rates at plate interfaces. On the basis of elastic dislocation theory, first, we numerically computed the internal stress fields in northeast Japan produced by the total subduction of the Pacific plate beneath the North American plate, however the computed stress pattern was opposite in sense to observations. Then, we computed the internal stress fields by taking c = 0.1 on average, and succeeded in reproducing the observed east-west compression in northeast Japan. This indicates that the concept of partial collision is essential to understand the mechanism of intraplate tectonic loading.  相似文献   

利用中国地壳运动观测网络研究中国大陆相对于ITRF97板块模型形变   总被引：12，自引：1，他引：11  

符养  朱文耀  王小亚  段五杏  吴显兵  焦文海 《地球物理学报》2002,45(3):330-337

在建立全球ITRF97板块运动模型的基础上,利用"中国地壳运动观测网络"79个GPS基本站的数据,建立我国新的地壳运动方向图和块体运动模型.通过与NNR-NUVEL1A地质模型比较认为,ITRF97板块运动模型反映了现今十几年跨度的地壳运动,在研究我国现今几年到十几年时间跨度的地壳形变时,地壳运动背景场应采用基于ITRF97实测速度场建立欧亚板块运动模型.  相似文献