Author:
Quattrocchi F.,Favara R.,Capasso G.,Pizzino L.,Bencini R.,Cinti D.,Galli G.,Grassa F.,Francofonte S.,Volpicielli G.
Abstract
Abstract. The paper discusses the correlation between the heating of shallow groundwater over a 10 × 20 km wide area close to the town of Nizza Monferrato (Piemonte Region, Northern Italy) and the concomitant local seismic sequences during the period August 2000 – July 2001. The first seismic sequence started on 21 August 2000 with a Ml = 5.2 earthquake. Within few hours, the local authorities received calls alerting that the groundwater temperature rose from 10 to 30°C in many shallow wells. Our geochemical experimental data and the geological-seismotectonic framework do not allow the hypothesis of simple fluid mixing between the thermal reservoir of Acqui Terme and the Nizza-Monferrato shallow groundwater to explain the observed thermal anomalies. On the other hand, we invoke more complex processes such as frictional heating, mechano-chemistry, fault-valve mechanism, adiabatic decompression and hydrogeologically driven heat flow i.e., thermal effects due to variations of basin-scale permeability field. All these processes are able to transmit heat to the surface and to generate a transient incremental heat flow better than the mass transfer occurring typically when fluids from different reservoirs mix.
Subject
General Earth and Planetary Sciences
Cited by
14 articles.
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