GeoTemp™ 1.0: A MATLAB-based program for the processing, interpretation and modelling of geological formation temperature measurements

• Published in: Computers & geosciences Vol. 57; pp. 197 - 207
• Main Authors: Ricard, Ludovic P., Chanu, Jean-Baptiste
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier Ltd 01.08.2013
• Subjects: computer software; computers; data collection; geophysics; Geothermal; Guided User Interface; heat; Heat flow; temperature; Temperature modelling; Thermal conductivity; Western Australia; Heat flow; Thermal conductivity; Guided User Interface; Geothermal; Temperature modelling
• ISSN: 0098-3004; 1873-7803
• DOI: 10.1016/j.cageo.2013.04.003

The evaluation of potential and resources during geothermal exploration requires accurate and consistent temperature characterization and modelling of the sub-surface. Existing interpretation and modelling approaches of 1D temperature measurements are mainly focusing on vertical heat conduction with only few approaches that deals with advective heat transport. Thermal regimes are strongly correlated to rock and fluid properties. Currently, no consensus exists for the identification of the thermal regime and the analysis of such dataset. We developed a new framework allowing the identification of thermal regimes by rock formations, the analysis and modelling of wireline logging and discrete temperature measurements by taking into account the geological, geophysical and petrophysics data. This framework has been implemented in the GeoTemp software package that allows the complete thermal characterization and modelling at the formation scale and that provides a set of standard tools for the processing wireline and discrete temperature data. GeoTempTM operates via a user friendly graphical interface written in Matlab that allows semi-automatic calculation, display and export of the results. Output results can be exported as Microsoft Excel spreadsheets or vector graphics of publication quality. GeoTemp™ is illustrated here with an example geothermal application from Western Australia and can be used for academic, teaching and professional purposes. •We developed a workflow for interpretation of wireline temperature measurements.•Our software allows an integrated analysis of temperature measurements.•Our software calculates vertical heat flow and thermal conductivity estimations.•The software has a user-friendly interface and process standard input/output files.