Chairman's Message
Dear colleagues,
In 2013 the International Heat Flow
Commission celebrates 50-anniversary of its
foundation.
Many dozens of highly experienced
researchers from Asia, Europe, Northern and
Latin America, Australia were elected and
worked in the IHFC during these 50 years. In
different years the IHFC was chaired by
Francis Birch (1963-1967), Elena Lubimova
(1967-1979), Lajos Stehena (1979-1983), Seya
Uyeda (1983-1987), Alan Beck (1987-1991),
Henry Pollack (1991-1995), Vladimír Čermák
(1995-1999), Ilmo Kukkonen (1999-2003),
David Chapman (2003-2007), Christoph Clauser
(2007-2011). The current chairman is Yuri
Popov (since 2011).
Created in 1963 within the IASPEI, the IHFC,
during many years following its foundation,
was dealing with the fundamental problems
related to the development of methods and
instruments for the measurements of
temperature and rock thermal properties
resulting in determination of heat flow,
heat flow data processing and
interpretation, prediction of crustal
temperatures, description of our planet’s
structure and its evolution from geothermal
data, and estimation of geothermal
resources.
A new important aspect in the geothermic
science and IHFC activity appeared in the
1980s to study the paleoclimate from the
experimental geothermal data and to provide
more accurate corrections of temperature
gradients accounting for the paleoclimatic
effect.
Geothermal experiments within super-deep and
deep drilling programs in 1980 - 1990
provided more reliable experimental data on
geothermal parameters due to the possibility
to reach thermal equilibrium of formations,
using numerous cores for thermal property
measurements, significant evolution in
measuring geothermic technique, wide
international cooperation within these
programs. These unique research projects
allowed the geothermal community to learn
more about the vertical variations of heat
flow in different geological settings and
provided a much better understanding of the
role of paleoclimatic effects and fluid
migration for the thermal regime. The new
experimental data inferred from the deep and
super-deep boreholes extended also our
knowledge about the terrestrial heat flow in
the areas of deep drilling which earlier
relied on measurements in shallow wells.
Significant developments in geothermal
measuring techniques and modeling simulators
during past decades resulted in more
reliable data bases, better possibilities
for more reliable measurements of geothermal
parameters, and 3D theoretical modeling. The
new temperature logging instruments, fiber
optical distributed temperature sensors, new
and enhanced traditional technologies for
rock thermal property measurements under lab
and in-situ conditions, more reliable and
accessible metrology provide now a much
improved quality of experimental geothermal
data and jointly with new powerful
simulators open new horizons in fundamental
and applied geothermics.
New important aspects in the IHFC activity
appeared during the last decade when the
geothermal energy exploration and production
and correlated induced seismicity problems
were included in 2007 in the scope of the
main scientific interests of the IIHFC. In
2011 the scope of the IHFC scientific
problems was extended more when geothermal
aspects of oil, gas, and gas hydrate
exploration and production were included
into the IHFC scientific interests. It
happened that geothermal research – both
fundamental and applied – becomes more and
more important in the oil-gas and gas
hydrate science and industry. Petroleum
system modeling, development and
optimization of thermal methods of enhanced
oil recovery, 4D modeling of reservoir
thermal properties, temperature monitoring
of reservoirs during the heavy oil
production and other activity related to
hydrocarbon recovery are based on effective
applications of a sound experimental basis,
approaches in reservoir modeling, and the
geothermal data bases developed to a great
extent by the geothermal community within
the IHFC.
A large heat flow data base, summarizing the
efforts of different generations of
geothermal researchers, has been created by
the IHFC during these 50 years. The just
started Collaboration of IHFC with ICSU’s
PANGAEA World Data Center will make the heat
flow data base even more readily accessible
and useful for the international scientific
community.
There are many important and urgent
fundamental, applied, and industrial
problems which require for their solution
reliable geothermal data and techniques. To
satisfy these requirements the geothermal
community needs new ideas, active young
researchers, international and
interdisciplinary projects, and fast
implementation of new theoretical and
experimental results and techniques
developed.
Yuri Popov
Moscow, 29 March 2013
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