Gulf of Mexico Borehole Geothermal Data Integration into the National Geothermal Data System, Part 2: North-central Continental Shelf

Seiichi Nagihara, Olabisi Ajiboye, Caroline Badger, Cory Christie, and Nosakhare Ogiamien
[email protected]

In 2009, the US Department of Energy initiated the effort to establish the National Geothermal Data System (NGDS). When it becomes accessible by the public later this year, NGDS will be a unified source of geothermal information for the entire United States, its territories, and the surrounding seas. Here, we give our 2nd report on the progress in our effort to integrate borehole geothermal data from the United States Exclusive Economic Zone of the Gulf of Mexico (GOM) to NGDS. So far, digital copies of wire-line logs from a total of ~7300 wells have been catalogued since the beginning of this project. Bottom-hole temperatures (BHTs) reported in their log headers have been tabulated and compiled into a database accessible by geographic information systems (GIS). BHTs from ~3000 of those wells have been corrected for the thermal disturbance associated with drill fluid circulation. The database of the corrected BHTs is spatially interpolated into GIS maps of continuous sedimentary temperature distribution of the United States continental shelf of GOM. At last year's GCAGS convention, we presented such GIS maps for the Texas continental shelf. Our present effort focuses on the north-central continental shelf off Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. In the north-central shelf, geothermal gradients vary geographically and they roughly inversely correlate with variations in Cenozoic sedimentation rate with the lowest geothermal gradient values found on the Mississippi delta.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #90167©2013 GCAGS and GCSSEPM 63^rd Annual Convention, New Orleans, Louisiana, October 6-8, 2013