Thermal structure of the Aegean lithosphere from numerical modelling

Abstract

The Aegean offshore area has a relatively thin crust and shallow Moho. This shows opportunities for geothermal energy exploration and exploitation, but first requires a better understanding of the thermal structure of the lithosphere. A geological model of the crust in the Aegean offshore region is constructed, from existing literature. This serves as an input geometry to model the steady-state temperature distribution of the lithosphere in the area. Information on their composition of the crust and its thermal properties is gained from literature. A horizontal resolution of 5000 by 5000 m and a vertical cell spacing of 400 m are set to model the region. A surface temperature of 10 C and a thermal Lithosphere-Astenosphere boundary (LAB) temperature of 1330 ◦ C are used as boundary conditions. Multi 1-D numerical modeling is performed to pre-process the input-data, to finally construct four 3-D temperature models, with a varying depth of the LAB. The models have implications to whether conduction would be the dominant heat transfer mechanism given the prescribed circumstances. They show possible intermediate to cold regions in the north, hot to intermediate regions in the central Aegean, a generally cold region from the central Aegean towards the south, except in the outermost south where a possible hot region is present.