Simulation of Cooling in a Magma Chamber: Implications for Geothermal Fields of Southern Peru

Numerical simulations of a geothermal reservoir often assume that the primary heat source is a magmatic system; however, heat from the host rock and the coupled complex transport phenomena between magma chamber and host rock also need to be considered. This research numerically simulated the cooling history of an enclosed magma chamber and the thermal effects on the host rock around it from which geothermal energy could be extracted. Modeling of the magma body included natural convection, the effect of latent heat of phase change when the crystals are being formed between the liquidus temperature and the solidus temperature, and heat conduction when the temperature is below the solidus temperature. This study takes as an example a geothermal reservoir in southern Peru (Western Cordillera) whose heat source is a rhyolitic magma chamber like those that gave rise to the intrusive rocks of the Peru coastal cordillera. This analysis varies the chamber shape and uses three solidification temperature ranges for convection and conduction models above the rock formation temperature (solidus) to study the implications for heating of the host rock. This is the first study of its kind in this area. The center of an average-sized magma chambers takes approximately 500 ka to cool from 800 °C to 300 °C. Simulated cooling times between intrusion and solidus temperatures decreased 3 ka when convection was modeled along with conduction cooling. Cooling times decreased by up to 6 ka when the solidification temperature range was increased. The host rock temperature pattern depends strongly on the stage at which the magma chamber is modeled to begin cooling. The temperatures results near the surface of the host rock obtained in this work match well with measurements at hot springs founded in several places in the Western Cordillera. Application of the methodology proposed in this study can reduce uncertainties in planning geothermal energy extraction wells. The accuracy of the numerical model described here could be improved by including more ground data from exploration wells, e.g., soil stratigraphy and temperatures variation with depth. © 2022