A review of geophysical exploration and current utilisation of Russian geothermal
resources is presented. The hydrogeothermal resources of Russia are rather well-
studied (Atlas of the USSR thermal..., 1983; Boguslavsky et al., 2003; Kononov et
al., 2003). Most of them are low temperature ones (Eastern and Western Siberia,
Northern Caucasus, Kaliningrad region, Chukotka, Baikal rift zone, Moscow
syneclise). They are used depending on temperature, pressure and fluid composition
for space heating of apartment houses and industrial buildings, in agriculture
(greenhouse heating), cattle breeding and fish-farming, drying of grain, tea,
algas, wood, some industrial productions (wool washing, paper production),
extraction of valuable dissolved components, improvement of oil-bearing reservoir
recovery, thawing of frozen ground, balneological and recreational use (geothermal
baths and swimming pools).
The high-temperature geothermal resources are located in Kamchatka and Kuril
Islands (High-temperature geothermal..., 1981). The most developed of them are
Mutnovka and Pauzhetka (Kamchatka), where heat flow is used for electric power
generation. In the former one the production occurs from a fault zone of
approximately 80 m thickness with a north-east-north strike and 60° south-east-
south dip. High-temperature liquid (40 kg/s, 1390 kJ/kg) upflows from southeast of
the fracture, where a deep 280 °C liquid-dominated zone shows quartz-epidote-
chlorite secondary hydrothermal mineralization. In the upper part of the main
production zone, ascending fluids encounter two-phase conditions characterized by
prehnite-wairakite precipitation. Fracture host rocks are diorites, Miocene-
Pliocene sandstones, rhyolites and ande-site tuffs and lavas. Shallow steam
condensate and a meteoric water mixing zone are characterized by calcite-chlorite-
illite mineralization. Geophysical exploration of this region (using gravimetric,
magnetometric and seismic methods) revealed the systems of tectonic disturbances
elongated in the north-east and meridional directions (High-temperature
geothermal…, 1981). Electroprospecting has detected here two large resistivity
anomalies (less than 5 Ohm.m): one in the north-east (3x5 km) and another in the
south-west (3x3 km) of the area. Inside these anomalies even less resistive zones
were found with resistivity 2.5 Ohm.m. Magnetotelluric sounding of this region has
revealed low resistivity zones (deepening up to the depths 5-6 km) interpreted as
fluid conductors of the heat carrier.
References
Atlas of the USSR Thermal Water Resources (Eds. Kulikov G.V. and Mavritskii B.F.),
1983. Moscow, VSEGINGEO Publ. (in Russian).
Boguslavsky, E.I., Vainblat, A.B., Pevzner, L.A., Smislov, A.A., Khakhaev, B.N.,
Boguslavskaja, I. Geothermal resources of Russia. Proc. Int. Geothermal seminar,
Sochi, Russia.
High-temperature geothermal reservoirs (Ed. Sugrobov, V.M.), 1981. Moscow, Nauka
Publ., 158pp. (in Russian)
Kononov, V.I., Polyak, B.G., and Khutorskoy, M.D., 2003. Hydrogeothermal resources
of Russia. Proc. Int. Geothermal seminar, Sochi, Russia.
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