Soil Sampling At Kilauea East Rift Geothermal Area (Cox, 1981)

GEOTHERMAL ENERGY

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Exploration Activity: Soil Sampling At Kilauea East Rift Geothermal Area (Cox, 1981)

Exploration Activity Details
Location	Kilauea East Rift Geothermal Area
Exploration Technique	Soil Sampling
Activity Date	1981 - 1981
Usefulness	could be useful with more improvements
DOE-funding	Unknown

Exploration Basis

This study was conducted for the purposes of identifying geothermal zones based on mercury concentrations in the soil.

Notes

Mercury concentrations in the soils from the lower east rift zone were measured. Concentrations of 15-1250 ppb were found. Some problems with this study, as far as geothermal exploration goes, were that a wide range of soils exist in the area. Mercury concentrations are dependent on factors such as soil development, ph., ground gasses, and organic content, so linking the measurements with geothermal activity is not straight forward. For the analysis of this data the author attempted to remove some of the non-geothermal factors and it was found that Hg anomalous zones were generally consistent with geothermal reservoir models at the time.

References

• Malcolm E. Cox (1981) An Approach to Problems of a Geothermal Mercury Survey, Puna, Hawaii