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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