The Lack of Immediate Effects from the 1979-80 Imperial and Victoria Earthquakes on the Exploited Cerro Prieto Geothermal Reservoir
- Key words
- Reservoir Engineering; General; Mexico; Imperial Valley; Mexicali Valley; Baja California; Cerro Prieto; Faults; Assessments; Intrusions; Two Phase; Fluid Immobility; Temperature; Chemistry; Enthalpy; Fluid Breakthrough; Chlorides; Scaling; San Andreas Fa
- Location
- Cerro Prieto, Mexico
- Conference
- Geothermal Resources Council Transactions
- Year
- 1986
- Session
- Seismicity; Reservoir cooling; Geothermometers; Recharge; Br
- Language
- English
Abstract
In 1979-80 two large earthquakes of local magnitude greater than 6.0 occurred near the Cerro Prieto geothermal field. It has been suggested that related to these seismic events there was an abrupt temperature increase in the wells completed in the shallow (alpha) reservoir. A careful study of the geochemistry of the produced fluids, as well as a cursory reservoir engineering analysis, cannot confirm either the data or the hypothesis of a massive influx of hot water into the system related to those events. Our study shows that the cold water recharge of the alpha reservoir in response to the production-induced drawdown continued, unaffected by the two earthquakes.
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