Microseismic Study of Menengai Caldera: Geothermal Prospect in the Central Kenya Dome

Abstract

The Geothermal Development Company (GDC) and the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) have deployed fourteen seismic stations around the Menengai geothermal field along the Kenya rift system to monitor the seismicity around the host volcano in order to identify active faults and fracture systems that may contain hydrothermal fluids and favorable drilling targets. Double difference relocation is being used to locate events and image faults at the margin of the caldera. We also use teleseismic events (50 thus far) with a minimum magnitude (Mw) of 5.4 to calculate SKS shear wave splitting so as to approximate the fast direction and splitting delay time. Finally, we are applying ambient noise tomography to identify the hydrothermal reservoir zone.