The Songpan‐Ganze terrane (SGT), formed by Early Mesozoic closure of the Paleo‐Tethys Ocean, occupies a large area of the central‐eastern Tibetan Plateau. Late Mesozoic and Cenozoic strike‐slip deformation has been identified in the surrounding terranes and faults (e.g., western Qinling, Altyn Tagh, and Kunlun faults); however, the coeval evolution of the SGT has not been well explored. We report apatite fission track and apatite and zircon (U‐Th)/He data from a >7 km deep borehole and outcrop samples covering an area of >150 × 150 km in the eastern SGT. Thermal history modeling suggests a distinct phase of Late Jurassic‐Early Cretaceous (∼150–100 Ma) cooling, followed by a prolonged stage of slow cooling, for all samples despite of their differences in depositional age (Mid‐Late Triassic time) and locality within a large area. The ubiquitous Late Jurassic‐Early Cretaceous cooling implies little differential deformation in the eastern SGT and is best explained by regional rock uplift resulting from the transpressional strain field created by the contemporaneous Lhasa‐Qiangtang collision to the south. Projecting the contemporaneous deformation surrounding the SGT onto an Early Cretaceous paleogeographic terrane reconstruction results in a new tectonic model. The model relates the Lhasa‐Qiangtang collision to tens to hundreds of kilometers of shearing along the Altyn Tagh and Kunlun faults, which transferred strain into central Asia (e.g., Qinling‐Dabie orogen). Results of this study suggest a rigid behavior for the eastern SGT and highlight the important role of crustal strength discontinuities in accommodating and transferring crustal deformation.

Geothermal energy has been recognized as an important clean renewable energy. Accurate assessment of geothermal resources is an essential foundation for their development and utilization. The North Jiangsu Basin (NJB), located in the Lower Yangtze Craton, is shaped like a wedge block of an ancient plate boundary and large-scale carbonate thermal reservoirs are developed in the deep NJB. Moreover, the NJB exhibits a high heat flow background because of its extensive extension since the Late Mesozoic. In this study, we used the Monte Carlo method to evaluate the geothermal resources of the main reservoir shallower than 10 km in the NJB. Compared with the volumetric method, the Monte Carlo method takes into account the variation mode and uncertainties of the input parameters. The simulation results show that the geothermal resources of the sandstone thermal reservoir in the shallow NJB are very rich, with capacities of (6.6–12) × 10²⁰ J (mean 8.6 × 10²⁰ J), (5.1–16) × 10²⁰ J (mean 9.1 × 10²⁰ J), and (3.2–11) × 10²⁰ J (mean 6.6 × 10²⁰ J) for the Yancheng, Sanduo and Dai’nan sandstone reservoir, respectively. In addition, the capacity of the geothermal resource of the carbonate thermal reservoir in the deep NJB is far greater than the former, reaching (9.9–15) × 10²¹ J (mean 12 × 10²¹ J). The results indicate capacities of a range value of (1.2–1.7) × 10²¹ J (mean 1.4 × 10²² J) for the whole NJB (<10 km).

Geothermal energy is an eco-friendly, renewable source of underground thermal energy that exists in the interior of the earth. By tapping into these formations, fluids can be channeled to heat the rock formations above, resulting in a significantly higher land surface temperature (LST). However, LST readings are influenced by various factors such as sun radiation, cyclical variations, and precipitation, which can mask the temperature anomalies caused by geothermal heat. To address these issues and highlight the LST anomalies caused by geothermal heat, this paper proposes a methodology to efficiently and quickly calculate the multi-temporal LST leveraging of the Google Earth Engine (GEE) in the Damxung–Yangbajain basin, Qinghai–Tibet Plateau. This method incorporates terrain correction, altitude correction, and multi-temporal series comparison to extract thermal anomaly signals. The existing geothermal manifestations are used as a benchmark to further refine the methodology. The results indicate that the annual mean winter LST is a sensitive indicator of geothermal anomaly signals. The annual mean winter LST between 2015 and 2020 varied from −14.7 °C to 26.7 °C, with an average of 8.6 °C in the study area. After altitude correction and water body removal, the annual mean winter LST varied from −22.1 °C to 23.3 °C, with an average of 6.2 °C. When combining the distribution of faults with the results of the annual mean winter LST, this study delineated the geothermal potential areas that are located predominantly around the fault zone at the southern foot of the Nyainqentanglha Mountains. Geothermal potential areas exhibited a higher LST, ranging from 12.6 °C to 23.3 °C. These potential areas extend to the northeast, and the thermal anomaly range reaches as high as 19.6%. The geothermal potential area makes up 8.2% of the entire study area. The results demonstrate that the approach successfully identified parts of known geothermal fields and indicates sweet spots for future research. This study highlights that utilizing the multi-temporal winter LST is an efficient and cost-effective method for prospecting geothermal resources in plateau environments.

The study of thermal conductivity anisotropy is of great importance for more accurate heat flow calculations, geodynamic studies, development and utilization of hot dry rock, and simulation of heat transfer in geological reservoirs of nuclear waste, and so on. To study the thermal conductivity anisotropy of rocks, 1158 cores from 60 boreholes in East China were tested for thermal conductivity, including thermal conductivity values parallel to (λ_∥) and perpendicular to (λ_⊥) structural planes of basalt, mudstones, gneisses, sandstones, carbonates, evaporites, and metamorphic rocks. The thermal conductivity anisotropy is not obvious for sand, clay, and evaporate, and the average anisotropic factors of 1.19 ± 0.22, 1.18 ± 0.17, and 1.18 ± 0.17 for tuff/breccia, granitoid and contact metamorphic rocks, respectively, indicate that these three rocks have strong anisotropy characteristics. Finally, the effect of thermal conductivity anisotropy on heat flow is studied and discussed in detail, showing that the results of thermal conductivity tests have a significant effect on the calculation of heat flow and thermal structure, and the data show that a deviation of about 10% in thermal conductivity causes a deviation of about 11% in heat flow, which may lead to a misperception of deep thermal structure studies. The regular and anisotropic characteristics of thermal conductivity of various rocks in Eastern China obtained in this paper can provide parameter support for projects such as heat flow calculations, thermal structure studies, and geothermal resource development and utilization.

Development and utilization of deep geothermal resources, especially a hot dry rock (HDR) geothermal resource, is beneficial for both economic and environmental consideration in oilfields. This study used data from multiple sources to assess the geothermal energy resource in the Daqing Oilfield. The temperature logs in boreholes (both shallow water wells and deep boreholes) and the drilling stem test temperature were used to create isothermal maps in depths. Upon the temperature field and thermophysical parameters of strata, the heat content was calculated by 1 km × 1 km × 0.1 km cells. The result shows that in the southeastern part of Daqing Oilfield, the temperature can reach 150 °C at a depth of 3 km. The heat content within 3–5 km is 24.28 × 10²¹ J, wherein 68.2% exceeded 150 °C. If the recovery factor was given by 2% and the lower limit of temperature was set to be 150 °C, the most conservative estimate for recoverable HDR geothermal resource was 0.33 × 10²¹ J. The uncertainties of the estimation are mainly contributed to by the temperature extrapolation and the physical parameter selections.