Investigation of a Fluid Boundary

Abstract

Aminoil is a subsidiary of R. J. Reynolds Industries, Inc., and successor to Burmah O i l and Gas Company. Our drilling activities in the southeast part of The Geysers area have proved geothermal steam reserves to power 300 megawatts of electric generating capacity. In the past year Aminoil has conducted exploratory drilling activities outside of the proven productive area in order to establish additional reserves. One of these areas is discussed in the paper.

The area of investigation is characterized by the intersection of at least three regional lineaments. These lineaments are discernible from satellite imagery of the NASA LANDSAT (formerly ERTS) program. The lineaments are confirmed by medium to low altitude color stereo pair photographs. On the surface these lineaments sometimes lack enough discernible ground displacement to be characterized as faults. These lineaments do coincide with cliffs, truncated ridges, major creeks and stream offsets. Figure 1 indicates the location of these lineaments by long, dashed lines.