Geothermometric temperature comparison of hot springs and wells in southern Idaho

Conventional geothermal resource prospecting often begins with geochemical analysis of geothermal fluids sampled from surface expressions (hot springs and fumaroles). Similarly, water samples from hot wells located near the surface expressions are also routinely collected and analyzed as a part of regional exploration efforts. The chemical compositions of these water samples can be used to assess the likely reservoir temperatures of the geothermal sites as well as to understand other reservoir characteristics. In this paper, we present comparative results of geothermometric reservoir temperatures based on water compositions measured from pairs of hot springs and nearby wells of 10 potential geothermal sites in southern Idaho using both traditional and multicomponent equilibrium geothermometric approaches. Our results show that the reservoir temperatures estimated using water compositions measured surface thermal features and wells produce similar results. However, for two of the 10 sites, Durfee Hot Spring and Fairchild Hot Spring, the estimated reservoir temperatures based on water compositions measured from hot springs were significantly higher than the estimated reservoir temperatures using the well water sample. In the case of the Durfee system, the well water may have chemically re-equilibrated within the aquifer resulting in a lower estimated temperature than that calculated using the hot spring. Similarly, in the case of the Fairchild system, the hot spring and well water chemistry are chemically distinct and had the greatest distance between the hot spring and well pairs of the examined geothermal sites. The difference in fluid chemistry suggests that the Fairchild Hot Spring reservoir is compartmentalized and the two expressions are issuing waters migrated from two separate portions of the reservoir. Although the majority of the hot spring/well pairs in southern Idaho provided concordant reservoir temperatures, it is imperative to consider the consistency of the water types and distance between the sources when estimating reservoir temperatures.