Geothermal resources are very abundant in the world and thus have great exploration potential.In addition,the geothermal resources will considerably stimulate the global economic development.In the exploration and development of geothermal resources,the seismic technique has been playing the essential role.This technique mainly includes active and passive seismic methods which are to be conducted at different stages of geothermal exploration.In this paper,seismic responses of geothermal reservoir are analyzed first,then new technologies of passive and active seismic methods are summarized,with the purpose of providing some valuable references for the geothermal seismic exploration in China.Studies show that passive seismic method should be conducted first in the initial geothermal survey.Nevettheless,this method has some limitations on the precision in the fracture detection and the description of permeability features;in contrast,active seismic method,which relies on the high S/N ratio and high-resolution itself, can describe reservoir characteristics better,therefore guaranteeing more-refined regional evaluation and extreme site optimization of undeveloped geothermal areas.Besides,multi-wave technique also will be the future orientation of geothermal development.