| dc.description.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. | |
