Project Hotspot: Preliminary Analysis of Secondary Mineralization in Basaltic Core, Central Snake River Plain
- Key words
- Geothermal; project hotspot; drilling; clay; calcite; quartz; Kimama; geothermometer; Snake River Plain; basalt
- Location
- Snake River, Idaho; Kimama, Idaho
- Conference
- Geothermal Resources Council Transactions
- Year
- 2011
- Session
- Exploration; Core sampling
- Language
- English
Abstract
Project Hotspot offers further understanding of the history and evolution of the Snake River Plain (SRP) through drilling wells in the SRP. The first well at Kimama encountered almost entirely basalt. Kimama drilled through a gradual transition from fresh to altered basalt with depth. The evolution of mineralization with depth at Kimama was initially calcite and some quartz followed by smectite clay minerals (nontronite and saponite) and zeolites. Smectite clay minerals are a great indicator of paleo-temperature of geothermal fluids. Description of the Kimama core, mineral habits, and forthcoming chemical analyses will be discussed in this paper.
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