Machine learning and shallow groundwater chemistry to identify
geothermal prospects in the Great Basin, USA
Abstract
This study discovers various geothermal prospects in the Great Basin,
USA based on shallow groundwater chemical (geochemical) data. The
geochemical data are expected to include hidden (latent) information
that is a proxy for geothermal prospectivity. We processed the sparse
geochemical data in the Great Basin at 14,341 locations including 18
attributes. Next, a non-negative matrix factorization with customized
k-means clustering (NMFk) is applied to the geochemical data matrix.
NMFk automatically finds three hidden geothermal signatures representing
modestly, moderately, and highly confident geothermal prospects. The
algorithm also evaluated the probability of occurrence of these types of
resources through the studied region. There is a consistency between
regional geothermal prospectivity as estimated by our ML methodology and
the traditional play fairway analysis conducted over a portion of the
study area. We also identify the dominant data attributes associated
with each signature. Finally, our ML analyses allow us to reconstruct
attributes from sparse into continuous over the study domain. The
predicted continuous attributes can be used for future detailed
geothermal explorations in the Great Basin.