{"id":39388,"date":"2024-11-12T09:05:02","date_gmt":"2024-11-12T09:05:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/\u200bnew.iter.es\/new-seismic-tomography-technique-reveals-geothermal-potential-on-la-palma\/"},"modified":"2024-11-12T09:05:02","modified_gmt":"2024-11-12T09:05:02","slug":"new-seismic-tomography-technique-reveals-geothermal-potential-on-la-palma","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.iter.es\/en\/new-seismic-tomography-technique-reveals-geothermal-potential-on-la-palma\/","title":{"rendered":"New seismic tomography technique reveals geothermal potential on La Palma"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>A groundbreaking study reveals areas of high seismic attenuation in the south of the island of La Palma, suggesting possible geothermal energy reserves beneath the Cumbre Vieja volcanic complex.  <\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"auto\">A scientific team of researchers from the <strong>Instituto Volcanol\u00f3gico de Canarias<\/strong> (INVOLCAN) and the <strong>Instituto Tecnol\u00f3gico y de Energ\u00edas Renovables<\/strong> (ITER), in collaboration with the <strong>University of Geneva<\/strong>, the <strong>Institut des Sciences de la Terre<\/strong> (ISTerre, France), the <strong>University of<\/strong> Granada and the <strong>Istituto<\/strong> Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (Italy), the <strong>University of Granada<\/strong> and the <strong>Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia<\/strong> (Italy), has published an innovative study on the development of a novel seismic noise tomography methodology and its application to the study of seismic attenuation on the island of La Palma. The work has been published in <em>Scientific Reports<\/em>, a prestigious international peer-reviewed open access scientific journal published by the <em>Nature<\/em> publishing group, covering all areas of the natural sciences. <\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\"> <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"auto\">Seismic noise tomography (SNT), for approximately two decades, has stood out as a very useful methodology for the study of the Earth&#8217;s interior structure at different scales. Specifically, this technique allows to determine the velocity of seismic waves in subsoil rocks, without the need of artificial sources or earthquakes. However, the velocity alone does not allow a detailed characterization of the nature of the subsurface.    <\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\"> <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"auto\">During their path, seismic waves lose energy due to seismic attenuation. This property of rocks is often related to the presence of fluids and is therefore particularly important for the study of volcanic and geothermal systems. <\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\"> <\/span><\/p>\n<p><b><span data-contrast=\"auto\">Application of the ANAT technique on La Palma<\/span><\/b><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\"> <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"auto\">The potential of the island of La Palma (Canary Islands) to host geothermal resources in its interior is very high, mainly due to its high volcanic activity. The study has developed a new technique for   <\/span><i><span data-contrast=\"auto\">environmental noise attenuation tomography (ANAT)<\/span><\/i><span data-contrast=\"auto\"> (ANAT) to obtain a three-dimensional image of the high attenuation areas in La Palma, exploring the subsoil up to 5 kilometers deep.<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\"> <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"auto\">  The results have indicated two areas with high attenuation in the south of the island: one under the Cumbre Vieja volcanic complex, possibly associated with zones of hydrothermal alteration, and another that could be associated with extensive fractures in the extreme south, suggesting the possible circulation of hot fluids in the area.<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\"> <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"auto\">In addition, this paper discusses from a geothermal point of view, the relevance of such anomalies, making a comparison with previous INVOLCAN studies on resistivity and seismic S-wave velocity, as well as density models. Fluids being a key component in geothermal reservoirs, it is reasonable to expect intrinsic attenuation anomalies in these systems. Therefore, we conclude that ANAT can be useful for geothermal exploration.  <\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\"> <\/span><\/p>\n<p><b><span data-contrast=\"auto\">Reference to the article:<\/span><\/b><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\"> <\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span data-contrast=\"auto\">Cabrera-P\u00e9rez I., D&#8217;Auria L., Soubestre J., del Pezzo E., Prudencio J., Ib\u00e1\u00f1ez J. M., Jim\u00e9nez-Mej\u00edas M., Padilla G. D., Barrancos J. &amp; P\u00e9rez N. M. (2024). <\/span><b><span data-contrast=\"auto\">3-D intrinsic attenuation tomography using ambient seismic noise applied to La Palma Island (Canary Islands).<\/span><\/b> <i><span data-contrast=\"auto\">Scientific Reports 14<\/span><\/i><span data-contrast=\"auto\">, 27354, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1038\/s41598-024-79076-w\"><span data-contrast=\"none\">https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1038\/s41598-024-79076-w<\/span><\/a><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\"> <\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\"> <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A groundbreaking study reveals areas of high seismic attenuation in the south of the island of La Palma, suggesting possible geothermal energy reserves beneath the Cumbre Vieja volcanic complex. A scientific team of researchers from the Instituto Volcanol\u00f3gico de Canarias (INVOLCAN) and the Instituto Tecnol\u00f3gico y de Energ\u00edas Renovables (ITER), in collaboration with the University<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":40521,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[233,232,231],"tags":[266,302],"class_list":{"0":"post-39388","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment-en","8":"category-genomics-en-2","9":"category-news","10":"tag-involcan-en","11":"tag-la-palma-en"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iter.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39388","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iter.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iter.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iter.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iter.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39388"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.iter.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39388\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iter.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40521"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iter.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iter.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iter.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}