Interpretation of Aeromagnetic Data for the Geothermal Properties in the Northwestern Part of Turkey

Abstract

The northwestern part of Turkey is a significant area for its location on the accretionary region of several micro-continents and blocks. Therefore, there are several suture zones and western segments of the "North Anatolian Fault Zone" are scattered in the study area. Due to trans-tensional stresses, there are several pull-apart basins and/or depressions within the fault zone in the study area. As a consequence, it is also possible to observe magmatic intrusions into the fault segments. All these events and magmatic emplacements in the tectonic framework provide significant magnetic anomalies throughout the region. In this study, geothermal potential of the region is investigated based on the spectral analysis of the magnetic data, together with the seismic velocity (VP) distribution in the area using the log-linear relationship between the seismic velocity and the radiogenic heat production. Although two regions are emerging in the Curie Point Depth (CPD) and geothermal gradient maps, only one anomalous area from Bursa to Tekirdag may be considered as a promising region for the further geothermal energy exploration in the heat-flow maps prepared according to two different thermal conductivity coefficients. Seismic velocities are also low in this anomalous region decreasing down to 6.40 km/s around the shoreline of Tekirdag. Heat-flow values are increasing up to 110 mW/m(2) in this particular area where the CPDs are around 14 km.