Heat flow, radioactivity, gravity, and geothermal resources in northern Colorado and southern Wyoming

Technical Report · Tue Dec 01 00:00:00 EST 1981

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/6873842· OSTI ID:6873842

Decker, E R; Buelow, K L

The surface heat flow values in the Sierra Madre-Medicine Bow-Laramie Mountains region are in the range 0.6 to 1.5 HFU. When the heat from local bedrock radioactivity is considered, the reduced flux in these mountains is low to normal (0.6 to 1.2 HFU). These data and the low to normal gradients (10 to 25/sup 0/C/km) in the studied drill holes strongly suggest that the resource potential of the Southern Rockies in Wyoming is low. The geothermal resource potential of the sedimentary basins in Wyoming that border these mountains also appears to be low because preliminary estimates for the flux in these areas are less than or equal to 1.5 HFU and the average gradients in analyzed drill holes are generally less than or equal to 30/sup 0/C/km. In contrast to southern Wyoming, the high surface and reduced heat flows strongly suggest that the Park areas and other parts of the Southern Rockies in northern Colorado are potentially valuable geothermal resource areas. The narrow northerly borders (less than or equal to 50 km) of these positive anomalies suggest that some of the resources could be shallow, as does the evidence for regional igneous and tectonic activity in the late Cenozoic. The small number of combined heat flow and radioactivity stations precludes detailed site-specific evaluations in these regions, but a few generalizations are made.

• Research Organization: Wyoming Univ., Laramie (USA). Dept. of Geology and Geophysics
• DOE Contract Number: FC07-79ID12026
• OSTI ID: 6873842
• Report Number(s): DOE/ID/12026-T1; ON: DE82020751
• Resource Relation: Other Information: Portions of document are illegible
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

15 GEOTHERMAL ENERGY
COLORADO
GEOTHERMAL RESOURCES
GRAVITY SURVEYS
HEAT FLOW
WYOMING
GEOTHERMAL GRADIENTS
IGNEOUS ROCKS
RADIOACTIVITY
RESERVOIR TEMPERATURE
RESOURCE POTENTIAL
ROCKY MOUNTAINS
TECTONICS
FEDERAL REGION VIII
GEOPHYSICAL SURVEYS
MOUNTAINS
NORTH AMERICA
RESOURCES
ROCKS
SURVEYS
TEMPERATURE GRADIENTS
USA
Geothermal Legacy
150301* - Geothermal Exploration & Exploration Technology- Geophysical Techniques & Surveys