Near-Surface Geothermal Reservoir Imaging based on the Customized Dense Seismic Network

Exploration of geothermal resources has become one of the major drivers for urbanization and economic transformation in southeast China, and it calls for temporal and spatial resolution improvements on conventional geophysical techniques under complex near-surface conditions. A dense seismic network including 192 sensors, with its aperture around 4.8 km, was deployed to record ambient noise for local-scale geothermal reservoir imaging in central Zhejiang Province, southeast China. With the ultrashort (less than 5 days) observation, a subset of the total station pairs was extracted to conduct seismic interferometry and dispersion measurements. This customized subnet was qualified to be an overdetermined system to achieve similar performance of entire network for the eikonal tomography with higher efficiency. The recorded high-frequency noise sources turned out to be rather homogeneous distributions, except for the dominant direction of northern Jinhua urban area. Azimuthal effects and wavelength restriction of dispersion measurements were quantified by simulating source-receiver responses under non-equipartitions of energy. The azimuth-velocity variations of field dataset verified that phase velocity measurements using the tested wavelength restriction were robust under different source-receiver orientations. The obtained phase velocity maps were comparable with the geological map. Furthermore, the inverted body wave velocities coincide well with the borehole data. Shear wave velocity profiles revealed corresponding fracture and depression structures of the reservoir. Finally, multiple geophysical properties delineate the shallow geothermy to be karst fissure water heated at certain earth temperature gradient.

Automated summary

The exploration of geothermal resources in southeast China has driven urbanization and economic transformation. By deploying a dense seismic network and utilizing seismic interferometry and dispersion measurements, high-resolution imaging of local-scale geothermal reservoirs can be achieved. The obtained phase velocity maps, along with shear wave velocity profiles, provide valuable insights into the geological structures and shallow geothermy of the area.