Causes of geothermal fields and characteristics of ground temperature fields in China

There are many arguments on energy sources and main controlling factors of geothermal fields, so a systematic study on the distribution of ground temperature fields shall be necessary. In this paper the thermal conduction forward method of geothermal field is used to simulate cooling rate of abnormal heat sources and heat transfer of the paleo-uplift model. Combined with a large number of geothermal field exploration cases and oil exploration well temperature curves of domestic and foreign, the following conclusions are drawn: (1) According to the magmatic activity time, the magmatism activities are divided into two categories: Magma active areas (activity time < 500 000 years) and weak/magma inactive areas (activity time > 500 000 years). The latter has a fast cooling rate (the cooling time of the magma pocket buried around 10 km is less than 200 000 years) after it has intruded into the shallow layer and it has no direct contribution to modern geothermal fields; (2) China belongs to a weak/magma inactive area such as Tengchong region and Qinghai-Tibet region because the chronological data of these regions show that its magma activity time is more than 500 000 years; (3) The temperature of most geothermal fields can be obviously divided into three segments in the vertical direction: A high geothermal gradient segment (Segment H) at the surface, then a low geothermal gradient segment (Segment L) at a secondary depth, and finally a lower temperature segment (Segment D) at a deeper depth. The temperature isoline presents a mirror reflection relation on the temperature profile, indicating that geothermal field is dominated by heat conduction, rather than having an abnormally high temperature "heat source" to provide heat; (4) Near-surface (0-5 km) materials' lateral heterogeneity caused by tectonic movement shall probably be the main controlling factor of ground temperature fields.