THE ASSESSMENT OF GEOTHERMAL POTENTIAL OF TURKEY BY MEANS OF HEAT FLOW ESTIMATION

Abstract

In this study, the heat flow distribution of Turkey was investigated in the interest ofexploring new geothermal fields in addition to known ones. For this purposes, thegeothermal gradient was estimated from the Curie point depth map obtained from airbornemagnetic data by means of power spectrum method. By multiplying geothermal gradientwith thermal conductivity values, the heat flow map of Turkey was obtained. The averagevalue in the heat flow map of Turkey was determined as 74 mW/m2. It points out existenceof resources of geothermal energy larger than the average of the world resources. in termsof geothermal potential, the most significant region of Turkey is the Aydin and itssurrounding with a value exceeding 200 mW/m2. On the contrary, the value decreasesbelow 30 mW/m2in the region bordered by Aksaray, Niğde, Karaman and Konya. Thenecessity of conducting a detailed additional studies for East Black sea, East and SoutheastAnatolia is also revealed