Abstract:
The Salt Lake geothermal field in Yuncheng City, Shanxi Province, China lies beneath a densely populated urban area, posing significant challenges to further geothermal exploration and extraction. Based on the distribution of geothermal gradients in the geothermal field, which are higher in the southwest and lower in the northeast, a NE-trending microtremor survey profile was arranged in the southern part of Yuncheng City, aimed at investigating the deep geothermal reservoir structure and NW-trending structures in the geothermal field. The 2D velocity structure profile reveals a pronounced low-velocity anomaly in the eastern part, which is supposed to be induced by the fault fracture zone formed by multiple NW-striking tensional faults. Spatially, this concealed fault zone roughly corresponds to the low-geothermal gradient anomaly in the northeastern Salt Lake geothermal field, suggesting that this fault fracture zone might facilitate the rapid infiltration of cold surface water, thereby lowering the temperature of deep rocks in the northeastern part, leading to the formation of a large-scale low-temperature anomaly zone. Additionally, the faults identified by the microtremor survey can be traceable and confirmed in a controlled source reflection seismic profile in the study area, demonstrating the complementary nature of the two methods. This study further reveals the deep geothermal structures of the Salt Lake geothermal field based on previous efforts. This study provides more valuable bases and guidance for future exploration and resource evaluation of geothermal fields in the region while also demonstrating the effectiveness and superiority of the microtremor survey method in research on urban geothermal resources.