0081 - Terrestrial Heat In Southwest China Province. Tengchong County at th...Front

Terrestrial Heat In Southwest China Province. Tengchong County at the western side of Mount Geological in Yunnan Province, which abounds in geothermal resources, has drawn the attention of scholars and geologists both at home and abroad. An exploration team from the Yunnan provinceial Geological Bureau is carrying out a general survey of terrestrial heat in Tengchong area in order to exploit and make use of the geothermal resources there. Geothermal activity in Tengchong is a twin brother of volcanic activity. Terrestrial heat there covers an area of 6,000 square kilometres. In addition to numerous fumaroles and steaming grounds, there are over 80 groups of springs including boiling, thermal and hot springs, with the temperature of 50 to 98 degrees centigrade. According to preliminary estimate, the natural geothermal heat they release in a year corresponds to 270,000 tons of standard coal. The underground hot water gushes out with a lot of minerals, forming variform peculiar sinters - - sinter tomb, sinter mushroom and sinter stalactites.