THE ASSESSMENT OF GEOTHERMAL POTENTIAL OF TURKEY BY MEANS OF HEAT FLOW ESTIMATION

In this study, the heat flow distribution of Turkey was investigated in the interest of exploring new geothermal fields in addition to known ones. For this purposes, the geothermal gradient was estimated from the Curie point depth map obtained from airborne magnetic data by means of power spectrum method. By multiplying geothermal gradient with thermal conductivity values, the heat flow map of Turkey was obtained. The average value in the heat flow map of Turkey was determined as 74 mW/m2. It points out existence of resources of geothermal energy larger than the average of the world resources. in terms of geothermal potential, the most significant region of Turkey is the Aydin and its surrounding with a value exceeding 200 mW/m2. On the contrary, the value decreases below 30 mW/m2 in the region bordered by Aksaray, Niğde, Karaman and Konya. The necessity of conducting a detailed additional studies for East Black sea, East and Southeast Anatolia is also revealed.