Abstract

DIAZ-GONZALEZ, Lorena; SANTOYO, Edgar  and  REYES-REYES, Juan. Three new improved Na/K geothermometers using computational and geochemiometrical tools: application to the temperature prediction of geothermal systems. Rev. mex. cienc. geol [online]. 2008, vol.25, n.3, pp. 465-482. ISSN 1026-8774.

Three new improved equations of the Na/K geothermometerwere developed through computational (artificial neural networks) and statistical tools (based on ordinary linear regression) from the analysis of a more representative world geochemical database (n=212) than hitherto used. The new Na/K geothermometers are given by the following equations: These new geothermometric equations were successfully evaluated and compared with measured deep temperature wellbore logs using a different geochemical database (n=112) to avoid the training and regression bias. The obtained results clearly show that the new geothermometers systematically provide better and reliable estimations of the deep equilibrium temperatures (for temperatures over 160 °C) than the equations previously reported in the geothermal literature. Details of the theoretical basis of the Na/K geothermometer, the computational and geochemometric methodologies used, as well as the validation and comparison results are outlined in this work.

Keywords : geothermometry; statistics; exploration; geochemometrics; artificial neural networks; geothermal systems.