Seismic campaign starts for Geoscan geothermal study in Île-de-France region
Pont Daydé, Boulogne-Billancourt, Île-de-France (source: Chabe01, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons)
Carlo Cariaga
13 Mar 2024
A seismic campaign has started as part of the Geoscan project which aims to characterize geothermal resources at the West and South Île-de-France regions.
A seismic data acquisition campaign is ongoing as part of the Géoscan project which aims to identify deep geothermal resources in the Île-de-France region of France. The seismic campaign is expected to last from 26 February to 15 April 2024.
The Geoscan Île-de-France project, a joint effort of the Ecological Transition Agency (ADEME), the Île-de-France (IDF) region and the National Geological Service (BRGM), aims to identify the places where the potential of deep geothermal energy is the most favorable in the West and South of Île-de-France. The project aims to address the gap in subsurface data in the West and South Île-de-France, although the Île-de-France as a whole already hosts the largest concentration of deep geothermal installations in Europe.
To achieve this objective, an integrated campaign of geophysical, geological, and geochemical studies to be led by the BRGM is planned for the next several months. The study area covers nearly 1900 square kilometers. The first stage of the study, the geophysical acquisition campaign, has already started. Vibrating trucks generating acoustic waves will crisscross the territory between Auvernaux in the south, Jouars Pontchartrain in the west, and Montmorency in the north.
The planned routes for the vibro trucks are shown below.
The new data that will be collected from the current campaign will be integrated with old data, mainly from oil exploration in the 70s and 90s. This will make it possible to present intermediate results by the second half of 2024. The final results of the project are expected by the second half of 2025 and will be critical in promoting the development of deep geothermal in this region.
Geothermal development in the Île-de-France region currently already provides heating to more than 310,000 housing equivalents, saving up to 400,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions if gas boilers had been used.
Source: Géoscan Île-de-France
