Geothermal Gradients on Svalbard, Arctic Norway

The high Arctic archipelago of Svalbard, Norway, is considering to replace the currently operating coal-fuelled power plants. Besides local fossil energy sources such as coal or shale gas in combination with carbon storage and sequestration, renewable sources such as geothermal energy are being considered as alternatives. A thorough assessment of the geothermal energy alternative relies on precise knowledge of the current heat-flow values. In addition, paleo-temperature gradients, former basin configuration and basin development are of great importance for the evaluation of all of these energy sources. We assessed the lateral distribution of the heat-flow for systematically logged commercial petroleum exploration and research boreholes using numerical models. For the Central Tertiary Basin, models were constrained with multi-physical data sets. Geothermal gradients ranging from 25 to 55 °C/km (33 °C/km on average) have been recorded, and these support the indication of local and regional heat-flows that exceed the global continental average.