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The Utah Frontier Observatory for Research in Geothermal Energy (FORGE) attempted a stimulation at well 16A(78)-32 during April and May 2022. We recorded telluric and magnetotelluric (MT) data before, during, and after the well stimulation experiment using the FORGE Telluric Monitoring (FTM) array to constrain transients in the Earth's electrical structure caused by the stimulation.
This project is a component of a broader effort focused on geothermal heating and cooling (GHC) with the aim of illustrating the numerous benefits of incorporating GHC and geothermal heat exchange (GHX) into community energy planning and national decarbonization strategies. To better assist private sector investment, it is currently necessary to define and assess the potential of low-temperature geothermal resources. For shallow GHC/GHX fields, there is no formal compilation of subsurface characteristics shared among industry practitioners that can improve system design and operations. Alaska is specifically noted in this work, because heretofore, it has not received a similar focus in geothermal potential evaluations as the contiguous United States. The methodology consists of leveraging relevant data to generate a baseline geospatial dataset of low-temperature resources (less than 150 degrees C) to compare and analyze information accessible to anyone trying to understand the potential of GHC/GHX and small-scale low-temperature geothermal power in Alaska (e.g., energy modelers, communities, planners, and policymakers). Importantly, this project identifies data related to (1) the evaluation of GHC/GHX in the shallow subsurface, and (2) the evaluation of low-temperature geothermal resource availability. Additionally, data is being compiled to assess repurposing of oil and gas wells to contribute co-produced fluids toward the geothermal direct use and heating and cooling resource potential. In this work we identified new data from three different datasets of isolated geothermal systems in Alaska and bottom-hole temperature data from oil and gas wells that can be leveraged for evaluation of low-temperature geothermal resource potential. The goal of this project is to facilitate future deployment of GHC/GHX analysis and community-led programs and update the low-temperature geothermal resources assessment of Alaska. A better understanding of shallow potential for GHX will improve design and operations of highly efficient GHC systems. The deployment and impact that can be achieved for low-temperature geothermal resources will contribute to decarbonization goals and facilitate widespread electrification by shaving and shifting grid loads.
This is a presentation on the Role of Fluid and Temperature in Fracture Mechanics and Coupled Thermo-Hydro-Mechanical-Chemical (THMC) Processes for Enhanced Geothermal Systems project by Purdue University, presented by Distinguished Professor of Physics & Astronomy, Laura J. Pyrak-Nolte. The project's objective was to develop and validate a macroscopic model that accounts for local deformation/frictional behavior, seismic/aseismic behavior, chemical reactions, and determine the adequacy of classic Coulomb failure vs. rate-and-state friction. This presentation was featured in the Utah FORGE R&D Annual Workshop on September 8, 2023. The workshop provided a valuable opportunity to explore the progress made in each of the 17 Research and Development projects funded under Solicitation 2020-1 which aim to enhance our understanding of the crucial factors influencing the development of Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS) reservoirs and resources.
This is a presentation on the Evolution of Permeability and Strength Recovery of Shear Fractures Under Hydrothermal Conditions project by the U.S. Geological Survey, presented by Dr. David Lockner. The project's objective was to determine how thermal, hydraulic, mechanical, and chemical processes affect the sustainability of fracture networks in geothermal reservoirs and provide strategies for improved EGS techniques that maximize thermal coupling and increase reservoir longevity. This presentation was featured in the Utah FORGE R&D Annual Workshop on September 8, 2023. The workshop provided a valuable opportunity to explore the progress made in each of the 17 Research and Development projects funded under Solicitation 2020-1 which aim to enhance our understanding of the crucial factors influencing the development of Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS) reservoirs and resources.
This data catalog contains information on low temperature geothermal play types. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Geothermal Technologies Office (GTO) supports the Geothermal Heating and Cooling Geospatial Datasets and Analysis project, conducted by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). This project is part of a broader effort to demonstrate the multifaceted value of integrating geothermal power and geothermal heating and cooling technologies into national decarbonization strategies and community energy plans. There is a need to establish baseline low-temperature geothermal resource data sets and evaluate methods for deploying these technologies. This project aims to reduce exploration risk of low temperature geothermal systems by collecting baseline datasets that can be used for Play Fairway Analysis methodologies. This data catalog contains links to publicly available datasets from different sources that can be relevant for the low temperature geothermal systems. This submission contains data catalogs for Alaska, Hawaii, and the Conterminous United States, as well as a technical report on the methods used to classify and asses the geothermal play types.
Included are data from triaxial, single-inclined-fracture friction experiments. The experiments were performed with slide-hold-slide protocol on Utah FORGE gneiss at increased temperature. With a ~10 MPa normal stress, temperatures vary between experiments from room temperature up to 163 Celsius. Hold times vary during experiment from ~10^1 to ~10^5 seconds. Measured are the frictional response upon reactivation after a hold period, active acoustic data (P-wave velocity and amplitude) and passive acoustic data (acoustic emission occurrence and amplitude). There are two types of datafiles: (1) Datafiles containing the friction data, including the temperature and the active acoustic data measured during the experiment (AEXX_Gneiss_Vp_mixref4). The underscore _Vp means that it includes the Vp or P-wave velocity data, with _mixref meaning that we use a mixed reference point for calculating the P-wave velocity. And (2) the datafiles containing the passive acoustics data, a catalog of the acoustic emissions (AE's) measured during the experiment (AEcatalog_AEXX_runX), where AEXX matches the experiment number and runX denotes which part of the experiment the data was collected, matching the times where active acoustic data was collected. AE catalogs are split in two parts when the file size exceeds 1 GB to aid download/opening times.
Laboratory slide-hold-slide tests were conducted in a conventional triaxial deformation configuration on 1-inch diameter cylindrical cores of Westerly granite bisected by a sawcut oriented at 30 degrees from vertical. Tests were conducted at a constant confining pressure of 30 MPa with a 10 MPa pore fluid pressure. The pore fluid was deionized water. Experiments were conducted at temperatures of 22, 100, 200, and 250 C. This data was collected to examine fault strength recovery in hydrothermal conditions.
As part of DEEPEN (DE-risking Exploration of geothermal Plays in magmatic ENvironments), a 3D play fairway analysis (PFA) was conducted at Newberry Volcano in Central Oregon for multiple play types (conventional hydrothermal, superhot EGS, and supercritical). For use in this PFA, combined full tensor broadband magnetotelluric (MT) and gravity data were acquired, processed, and inverted by Enthalpion Energy LLC (Enthalpion) with support from NREL staff. The data collection efforts took place from June 19th to July 24. Data were collected with the goal of gaining an improved understanding of the South Flank and the extent of the magma chamber. This GDR submission includes the raw data, single inversions, joint inversions, resolution matrices, and a report on these processes. More detailed information about the folder structure of the datasets included in this submission may be found on pages 94-97 of Magnetotelluric and Gravity Survey Report.pdf below.
The Imperial Valley Dark Fiber Project acquired Distributed Acoustic Sensing (DAS) seismic data on a ~28 km segment of dark fiber between the cities of Calipatria and Imperial in the Imperial Valley, Southern California. Dark fiber refers to unused optical fiber cables in telecommunications networks and is repurposed in this project for DAS applications. The objective, which is further detailed in the attached journal article from Ajo-Franklin et al., is to demonstrate dark fiber DAS as a tool for basin-scale geothermal exploration and monitoring. The included DAS data were recorded during two days at the beginning the project. Data is stored in the .h5 (HDF5) file format, readable using various software tools, including the 'h5read' and 'h5info' functions in Matlab. Provided here are examples of methods to read and use the data with the 'h5py' package in Python.
This comprehensive magnetotellurics (MT) dataset, which covers southwestern Utah, integrates 600 sites from various surveys, including those from the Utah FORGE, SubTER, and Play Fairway projects, all of which are linked below. The core of this dataset is the use of a 3D finite element (FE) algorithm for inversion imaging, allowing for detailed analysis of the MT data. Provided here are all .edi files, the 3D finite element mesh (with a readme file), graphic slices, node graphics, resistivity graphics, and reports on the acquisition areas and inversion.
Part of the DEEPEN (DE-risking Exploration of geothermal Plays in magmatic ENvironments) project involved developing and testing a methodology for a 3D play fairway analysis (PFA) for multiple play types (conventional hydrothermal, superhot EGS, and supercritical). This was tested using new and existing geoscientific exploration datasets at Newberry Volcano. This GDR submission includes images, data, and models related to the 3D favorability and uncertainty models and the 2D favorability and uncertainty maps. The DEEPEN PFA Methodology, detailed in the journal article below, is based on the method proposed by Poux & O'brien (2020), which uses the Leapfrog Geothermal software with the Edge extension to conduct PFA in 3D. This method uses all available data to build a 3D geodata model which can be broken down into smaller blocks and analyzed with advanced geostatistical methods. Each data set is imported into a 3D model in Leapfrog and divided into smaller blocks. Conditional queries can then be used to assign each block an index value which conditionally ranks each block's favorability, from 0-5 with 5 being most favorable, for each model (e.g., lithologic, seismic, magnetic, structural). The values between 0-5 assigned to each block are referred to as index values. The final step of the process is to combine all the index models to create a favorability index. This involves multiplying each index model by a given weight and then summing the resulting values. The DEEPEN PFA Methodology follows this approach, but split up by the specific geologic components of each play type. These components are defined as follows for each magmatic play type: 1. Conventional hydrothermal plays in magmatic environments: Heat, fluid, and permeability 2. Superhot EGS plays: Heat, thermal insulation, and producibility (the ability to create and sustain fractures suitable for and EGS reservoir) 3. Supercritical plays: Heat, supercritical fluid, pressure seal, and producibility (the proper permeability and pressure conditions to allow production of supercritical fluid) More information on these components and their development can be found in Kolker et al., (2022). For the purposes of subsurface imaging, it is easier to detect a permeable fluid-filled reservoir than it is to detect separate fluid and permeability components. Therefore, in this analysis, we combine fluid and permeability for conventional hydrothermal plays, and supercritical fluid and producibility for supercritical plays. We also project the 3D favorability volumes onto 2D surfaces for simplified joint interpretation, and we incorporate an uncertainty component. Uncertainty was modeled using the best approach for the dataset in question, for the datasets where we had enough information to do so. Identifying which subsurface parameters are the least resolved can help qualify current PFA results and focus future efforts in data collection. Where possible, the resulting uncertainty models/indices were weighted using the same weights applied to the respective datasets, and summed, following the PFA methodology above, but for uncertainty.
This dataset includes microseismic surface network catalogs for Utah FORGE. Data were recorded during the stimulation of well 16A(78)-32 in 2022 and the circulation tests between wells 16A(78)-32 and 16B(78)-32 in 2023. Near-surface seismic monitoring during circulation experiments in wells 16A(78)-32 and 16B(78)-32 revealed fracture growth after shut-in. The catalog provided here offers a comprehensive list of microseismic events, including details on their spatial and temporal distribution, magnitude, and clustering behavior.
This is a composite 3D seismic velocity that was constructed from compiled information from several local studies regarding seismic velocities and structural information. This seismic velocity model is provided in NonLinLoc format (slow_len), which is readily usable in NonLinLoc software. Other model formats and versions of the model can be produced using the Python script provided with this data set. Details on how the model was created and prior velocity and structural information was used is provided in the accompanying documentation.
This dataset includes raw and processed seismic data from the 2021 seismic survey at the San Emidio geothermal field in Nevada. In April and May 2021, 37 tri-axial short period seismographs were deployed in a 1.8km diameter cluster centered on 40.367278 N, 119.409019 W. The first data record started at 2021-04-06T07:09:10Z UTC and the last record ended at 2021-05-11T02:58:52Z UTC. The 37 stations included 29 SmartSolo IGU-16HR 3C all-in-one 5 Hz seismographs and 8 DataCube seismographs with 4.5 Hz HGS HG-6(B coil) tri-axial geophones. The raw format (level 0) data includes 353 GB of 500 sps SmartSolo data in native DLD format, 113 GB of 400 sps DataCube data in native DataCube format, and 3.4 GB of GPS data collected during the RTK GPS survey. The SAC data (level 1) files include 564 GB of hourly SAC files. The experiment was designed to monitor seismic activity before, during, and after the planned three-day plant maintenance shutdown April 19-21, 2021. The pumping stopped at 2021/04/19 12:51:45 UTC and resumed about 2021/04/21 21:00:00 UTC. The dataset is hosted in an AWS data lake, with an associated GDR data set providing the metadata. Links to both of these resources are included below. Additionally, this collection features data and metadata from a 2016 seismic survey at the same site for comparative analysis.
This is a collection of metadata from the 2021 seismic survey at the San Emidio geothermal field in Nevada. In April and May 2021, 37 tri-axial short period seismographs were deployed in a 1.8km diameter cluster centered on 40.367278 deg N, 119.409019 deg W. The first data record started at 2021-04-06T07:09:10Z UTC and the last record ended 2021-05-11T02:58:52Z UTC. The 37 stations included 29 SmartSolo IGU-16HR 3C all-in-one 5 Hz seismographs and 8 DataCube seismographs with 4.5 Hz HGS HG-6(B coil) tri-axial geophones. The raw format (level 0) data includes 353 GB of 500 sps SmartSolo data in native DLD format, 113 GB of 400 sps DataCube data in native DataCube format, and 3.4 GB of GPS data collected during the RTK GPS survey. The SAC data (level 1) files include 564 GB of hourly SAC files. The experiment was designed to monitor seismic activity before, during, and after the planned three-day plant maintenance shutdown April 19-21, 2021. The pumping stopped at 2021/04/19 12:51:45 UTC and resumed about 2021/04/21 21:00:00 UTC. The raw and processed data are in an associated GDR submission, linked below. The metadata here includes files containing experiment details, station locations, seismic data logger specifications, instrumentation specifications, and descriptions of data. Also included are data and metadata from a 2016 seismic survey at the same site.
In September 2016, 989 vertical-component seismic instruments were deployed for 75 hours at the Crescent Valley greenfield geothermal play area in Nevada. Data were recorded 12/9/16 - 12/15/16. Data are stored in individual files in one-minute increments in SEGD formats. See the metadata in Crescent Valley Station Locations.sp1, Crescent Valley Observer Logs.xls, and the attached Metadata link for details about the seismic station locations, seismic data logger specifications, instrumentation specifications, descriptions of data, a fracture finding summary, and the final report for the 2016 seismic survey done in Crescent Valley, Nevada. Note that no discrete events were identified, and a 1750m x 2250m x 300m PSET volume of acoustic energy was delivered.
This submission includes a high-precision seismic event catalog estimated from seismic data collected at San Emidio, Nevada from April to May 2022. The catalog lists the precise time, location, and magnitude of microseismic events recorded during this period. Both the seismic data and microseismic event catalog were produced as part of the Water & Hole Observations Leverage Effective Stress Calculations and Lessen Expenses (WHOLESCALE) project. Attached here are the microseismic event catalog, a link to the raw seismic data, and a detailed description of methods used to create the catalog.
This preliminary data archive includes the relocated microseismic event catalog, 1D velocity model, and methods report from DAS acquisition conducted during the Well 16A and 16B circulation test (July 19th and 20th, 2023) at Utah FORGE. The methods report describes all processing steps, including real-time event detection, hierarchical clustering, joint velocity/hypocenter inversion, and relocation. The resulting work is accepted and will be presented at IMAGE 2024. This dataset was acquired by the FOGMORE R&D project (Fiber Optic MOnitoring for Reservoir Evolution), Utah FORGE R&D Project 3-2417.