energies-logo

Journal Browser

Journal Browser

Geophysical Geothermal Reservoir Exploration, Monitoring, and Development – Volume II

A special issue of Energies (ISSN 1996-1073). This special issue belongs to the section "J: Thermal Management".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 25 July 2024 | Viewed by 1099

Special Issue Editors


E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
College of Geo-exploration Science and Technology, Jilin University, Changchun 130026, China
Interests: combined near-surface geophysical exploration imaging and geothermal reservoir monitoring
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Geophysicist at the Earth and Environmental Sciences Division, Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM, USA
Interests: geothermal monitoring with geophysics and machine learning methods

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
1. College of Geo-exploration Science and Technology, Jilin University, Changchun 130026, China
2. Key Laboratory of Applied Geophysics, Ministry of Natural Resources of PRC, Changchun 130026, China
3. Ministry of Land and Resources, Key Laboratory of Applied Geophysics, Jilin University, Changchun 130026, China
Interests: geodetection and information technology
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Hot dry rock (HDR) geothermal or supercritical geothermal systems are a clean renewable energy source of great developmental value. Geophysical methods, such as magnetotelluric (MT), distributed acoustic sensing (DAS), and gravitational, active, and passive seismic methods, are important technical means in the exploration, development, and monitoring of HDR reservoirs based on the differences in reservoir physics parameters. The conventional geothermal–geophysical methods focus on the reservoir interpretation and evaluation of the HDR target site. This does not provide details about the formation mechanisms of HDR thermal storage and the temporal and spatial variation in the geothermal heat flux, especially for the monitoring of reservoir intrinsic parameters before and after artificial fracturing, such as the extension of fractures in the reservoir, the distribution of fluid migration, and reservoir permeability. Based on the gravitational anomaly, electrical parameters (resistivity, impedance phase), and reservoir velocity changes, we combine geophysical methods to monitor reservoir parameter variations and build a dynamic reservoir model from different scales and parameters. The machine learning (ML) method is used to organize and classify geophysical data and to correct and calculate the reservoir dynamic model to predict the variation in reservoir intrinsic parameters. In this Special Issue, we want to present papers on geothermal resource exploration, monitoring, and development for HDR or deep supercritical geothermal systems. We also would like to address geothermal resource/reserve classifications and their mutual relations. We also invite authors specializing in technological novelties in geothermal exploration, monitoring, and development. This Special Issue calls for theoretical and empirical papers focusing on the following topics:

  • Geothermal reservoir monitoring by geophysics methods;
  • Geothermal reservoir prediction by deep learning;
  • Geothermal reservoir modeling and simulation;
  • Geothermal multi-field coupling and geothermal well development;
  • Supercritical geothermal systems.

Prof. Dr. Jing Li
Dr. Kai Gao
Prof. Dr. Zhaofa Zeng
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Energies is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Related Special Issue

Published Papers (1 paper)

Order results
Result details
Select all
Export citation of selected articles as:

Research

33 pages, 31726 KiB  
Article
Seismic Characterization of the Blue Mountain Geothermal Field
by Kai Gao, Lianjie Huang and Trenton Cladouhos
Energies 2023, 16(15), 5822; https://doi.org/10.3390/en16155822 - 05 Aug 2023
Viewed by 893
Abstract
Subsurface characterization is crucial for geothermal energy exploration and production. Yet hydrothermal reservoirs usually reside in highly fractured and faulted zones where accurate characterization is very challenging because of low signal-to-noise ratios of land seismic data and lack of coherent reflection signals. We [...] Read more.
Subsurface characterization is crucial for geothermal energy exploration and production. Yet hydrothermal reservoirs usually reside in highly fractured and faulted zones where accurate characterization is very challenging because of low signal-to-noise ratios of land seismic data and lack of coherent reflection signals. We perform an active-source seismic characterization for the Blue Mountain geothermal field in Nevada using active seismic data to reveal the elastic medium property complexity and fault distribution at this field. We first employ an unsupervised machine learning method to attenuate groundroll and near-surface guided-wave noise and enhance coherent reflection and scattering signals from noisy seismic data. We then build a smooth initial P-wave velocity model based on an existing magnetotellurics survey result, and use 3D first-arrival traveltime tomography to refine the initial velocity model. We then derive a set of elastic wave velocities and anisotropic parameters using elastic full-waveform inversion, and obtain PP and PS images using elastic reverse-time migration. We identify major faults by analyzing the variations of seismic velocities and anisotropy parameters, and reveal mid- to small-scale faults by applying a supervised machine learning method to the seismic migration images. Our characterization reveals complex velocity heterogeneities and anisotropies, as well as faults, with a high spatial resolution. These results can provide valuable information for optimal placement of future injection and production wells to increase geothermal energy production at the Blue Mountain geothermal power plant. Full article
Show Figures

Figure 1

Back to TopTop