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The significance of heat transport by shallow fluid flow at an active plate boundary: the Southern Alps, New Zealand

Coussens, J.; Woodman, N.; Upton, P.; Menzies, C.D.; Janku-Capova, L.; Sutherland, R.; Teagle, D.A.H.

The significance of heat transport by shallow fluid flow at an active plate boundary: the Southern Alps, New Zealand Thumbnail


Authors

J. Coussens

N. Woodman

P. Upton

L. Janku-Capova

R. Sutherland

D.A.H. Teagle



Abstract

Fluid flow can influence fault behavior. Here we quantify the role of groundwater heat advection in establishing the thermal structure of the Alpine Fault, a major tectonic boundary in southern New Zealand that accommodates most of the motion between the Australian and Pacific Plates. Convergence on the Alpine Fault has rapidly uplifted the Southern Alps, resulting in high geothermal gradients and a thin seismogenic zone. A new equilibrium temperature profile from the 818-m-deep Deep Fault Drilling Project 2B borehole has been interrogated using one-dimensional analytical models of fluid and rock advection. Models indicate a total heat flux of 720-mW m2 results from groundwater flow with Darcy velocities approximating to 7.8 × 1010 m s1. Groundwaters advect significantly more heat than rock advection in the shallow orogen (<6-km depth) and are the major control on the subsurface temperature field.

Citation

Coussens, J., Woodman, N., Upton, P., Menzies, C., Janku-Capova, L., Sutherland, R., & Teagle, D. (2018). The significance of heat transport by shallow fluid flow at an active plate boundary: the Southern Alps, New Zealand. Geophysical Research Letters, 45(19), 10323-10331. https://doi.org/10.1029/2018gl078692

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Sep 12, 2018
Online Publication Date Oct 5, 2018
Publication Date Oct 5, 2018
Deposit Date Oct 2, 2019
Publicly Available Date Mar 28, 2024
Journal Geophysical Research Letters
Print ISSN 0094-8276
Electronic ISSN 1944-8007
Publisher Wiley
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 45
Issue 19
Pages 10323-10331
DOI https://doi.org/10.1029/2018gl078692

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Publisher Licence URL
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Copyright Statement
©2018. The Authors.
This is an open access article under the
terms of the Creative Commons
Attribution License, which permits use,
distribution and reproduction in any
medium, provided the original work is
properly cited.




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