Journal of Applied Geophysics 118 (2015) 4765

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Journal of Applied Geophysics

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jappgeo

Magnetotelluric investigation of the geothermal anomaly in

Hailin, Mudanjiang, northeastern China
Lili Zhang a,b,, Tianyao Hao a, Qibin Xiao c, Jie Wang a, Liang Zhou d, Min Qi e, Xiangpan Cui a, Ningxiao Cai a
a
Key Laboratory of Petroleum Resources Research, Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100029, People's Republic of China
b
State Key Laboratory of Petroleum Resource and Prospecting, China University of Petroleum, Beijing 102249, People's Republic of China
c
Institute of Geology, China Earthquake Administration, Beijing 100029, People's Republic of China
d
University of Utah, Salt Lake City 84112, USA
e
Institute of Mineral Resources Research, China Metallurgical Geology Bureau, Beijing 100025, People's Republic of China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: To study the occurrence conditions and locations of geothermal bodies in Hailin, Mudanjiang, northeastern
Received 5 January 2014 China, we conducted a magnetotelluric investigation to delineate the electrical conductivity structure of the
Received in revised form 14 March 2015 area on three parallel proles. The area to the west of the Mudanjiang Fault lies in the Hailang sag of the Ning'an
Accepted 1 April 2015
Basin. The data were processed using the mutual reference technique, static shift correction, and structural strike
Available online 11 April 2015
and dimensionality analysis based on tensor decomposition. Moreover, a modied anisotropic-diffusion-based
Keywords:
method was used to suppress noise for the magnetotelluric time series data. This method retains the advantages
Magnetotelluric survey of conventional anisotropic diffusion and is superior in its discrimination ability. The method is characteristic not
Geothermal exploration only of the inherited features such as intra-region smoothing and edge preservation, but also of the adaptive se-
Modied-anisotropic-diffusion-based lection of the diffusion coefcient. Data analysis revealed that the electrical resistivity structure can be approxi-
denoising mated by a two-dimensional characterization. Two-dimensional inversion and rendering visualization show that
Hailang sag a highly resistive granite basement is covered with conductive sedimentary layers and that a relatively low-
The Mudanjiang Fault resistivity anomalous structure with a resistivity of approximately 100600 m is imbedded in the high-
resistivity background. The anomalous structure has a narrow top and a wide bottom (the bottom depth is at
least 3500 m). The shape and electrical features of the structure indicate favorable storage space for hot subsur-
face water. Fault activities and magma intrusion may result in the fractures of the basement, which are lled with
hot water and thus produce the relatively low resistivity. Based on a comprehensive analysis, we infer that the
structure is indicative of a geothermal reservoir. An exploratory well drilled near the structure conrms the oc-
currence of high temperatures. Several geological factors (cap rock, basement, and major faults) determine the
favorable geothermal conditions of the reservoir. Large areas of granite form the major thermal source for the
study area. The Mudanjiang and Hailang River Faults and their subsidiary faults provide another heat source
and movement channels.
2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

1. Introduction
High electrical conductivity is one feature of geothermal sources.
Geothermal-water-rich rocks commonly have relatively lower resistiv-
ity than initial rocks, and the variation in the resistivity is related to the
water abundance, temperature, and degree of mineralization (Spichak
et al., 2007). Hot subsurface water is closely related to structural frac-
tured zones connected to medium-deep hot sources. Water-abundant
Corresponding author at: Key Laboratory of Petroleum Resources Research, Institute
of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100029, People's
Republic of China.
E-mail address: lilyzhang@mail.iggcas.ac.cn (L. Zhang).
(especially hot water) and fractured zones usually have lower resistiv-
ity. The resultant low-resistivity anomalies have generally been the
main target for the geophysical exploration of geothermal resources
(Simpson and Bahr, 2005). This is the geophysical basis of
magnetotelluric (MT) soundings for geothermal resource exploration.
The MT method can be used to detect the distribution of highly conduc-
tive geological bodies and faults. MT data, when combined with other
geophysical anomalies and geological conditions, can be used to predict
the distribution of thermal reservoirs (Spichak and Manzella, 2009).
Since the late 1980s, the development of remote references, robust ap-
proaches, distortion corrections, multidimensional modeling and inver-
sion methods has made the interpretation of magnetotelluric data more
reasonable (Bahr and Simpson, 2005; Berdichevsky and Dmitriev, 2008;

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jappgeo.2015.04.006
0926-9851/ 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
48 L. Zhang et al. / Journal of Applied Geophysics 118 (2015) 4765
Chen and Wang, 1990; Telford et al., 1990). There have been many suc-
cessful applications of the MT method in geothermal exploration (Bai
et al., 2001; Corwin and Hoover, 1979; Johnston et al., 1992; Kong
et al., 1991; Newman et al., 2008; Pellerin et al., 1996; Volpi et al.,
2003; Wright et al., 1985).
Previous geophysical and geological studies suggest the presence
of geothermal resources underneath the southern part of Mudan-
jiang and its adjacent areas in Heilongjiang Province, northeastern
China (Qi, 2006; Sui et al., 2011; Ye, 2011; Wang and Huang, 2014).
The activities of the Mudanjiang and DunhuaMishan Faults and
their subsidiary faults have provided heat and favorable space for
the geothermal resources. Hailin lies in western Mudanjiang and is
close to the Mudanjiang Fault. Neither data nor cases of geophysical
investigations in Hailin have been published. Therefore, no geophys-
ical evidence can be referenced to reveal whether Hailin also has
geothermal potential like the southern part of Mudanjiang. Some
geological and hydrogeochemical investigations reveal that the
basement of Hailin mainly consists of granites and granodiorites
and is buried at shallow depths (Jing et al., 2008; Li et al., 2007). As
a result, the basement is highly resistive. However, if the granites
or granodiorites are fractured or lled with uids, especially hot
water, their resistivity will decrease dramatically. Such a resistivity
contrast is to be expected for an MT investigation.
To study the possible occurrence conditions of Hailin, we conduct
an MT survey on three parallel proles at the village of Hailin to delineate
the geoelectrical structure and provide geophysical evidence for the
exploitation and evaluation of geothermal resources in the area. Reliable
data are obtained through mutual reference, noise suppression, static
shift correction, and dimensionality analysis based on tensor
decomposition. A modied anisotropic-diffusion-based method is
utilized to suppress noise for the MT time series. This method retains
the advantages of conventional anisotropic diffusion and is superior in
its discrimination ability. A 2-D inversion is used to provide better con-
straints on the conductivity structures of the three proles. A rendering
visualization of the inversion results is applied to represent the structures.
Fig. 1. Topographic map.
After the MT survey, an exploratory well was drilled where the MT results
indicate favorable structures of geothermal water. The well conrms the
occurrence of high temperatures. The geothermal sources are deduced
based on the geological conditions of the area.
2. Geological and tectonic setting
2.1. Tectonic setting
The study area (see the red rectangle in Fig. 1) is located in the
volcanic rock belt of Changbaishan Mountain, which is an important
part of the Pacic Mesozoic volcanic chains. The area is next to the west-
ern side of the Mudanjiang Fault, in the Hailang sag of the Hailang
Depression (belonging to the Ning'an Basin). The Hailang Depression
is a relatively independent artesian basin (Li et al., 2007). Strata are
widely outcropped, and intense magmatic activities and structures
developed there. The structural evolution includes the Zhangguangcai
Range epoch, Caledonian epoch, Indo-Chinese epoch, and Yanshan
epoch. The deformation structures are mainly northsouth linear
compaction folds.
2.2. Stratigraphy
Fig. 2 is the regional geological map of the MT survey area. The out-
crop strata are distributed in valleys and are composed of sandstones
and glutenites, which mostly belong to the Neogene and Quaternary.
Other outcrops close to the survey area are Cretaceous Hailang forma-
tion, migmatitic granodiorite of Variscan age, granite rock formation of
Early Yanshanian age, alaskite granite rock formation of Late Variscan
age, and granite porphyry rock formation of Late Yanshanian age. Be-
cause of the intensive magmatic activity in the area, the strata are seri-
ously damaged and the remains are mainly xenoliths distributed in the
intrusive rocks. The intrusive rocks are alaskite granite, granodiorite,
gabbro, and granite porphyry of Yanshanian epoch, Indo-Chinese
epoch, Late Variscan epoch, and Proterozoic. Their modes of occurrence
 L. Zhang et al. / Journal of Applied Geophysics 118 (2015) 4765 49

Fig. 2. Regional geological map of the MT survey area (the coordinate system is WGS84, UTM (Universal Transverse Mercator) projection). (1Quaternary system; 2Hailang formation;
3Alaskite granite rock formation of Early Yanshanian Age; 4Alaskite granite rock formation of Late Variscan age; 5Granite porphyry; 6Proterozoic Migmatitic granodiorite;
7Migmatitic granodiorite of Variscan age; 8Daotaiqiao formation (the Neocene) basalt; 9Granite porphyry rock formation of Late Yanshanian Age; 10Granite rock formation of
Early Yanshanian Age; 11Aotou formation; 12Lower Aotou formation; 13Upper Aotou formation; 14Ningyuancun formation; 15Ximashan formation; 16MT sites.).

are abyssolith, dyke, and shoot. The geotectonic units control the devel-
opment of the regional stratigraphy, especially the pre-Mesozoic strata.
The detailed strata in Hailin are shown in Table 1.
After the DunhuaMishan and Mudanjiang Fault Belts (Fig. 1)
formed, the Hailang sag formed in the place where sandstones and silt-
stones were deposited, which has a maximum thickness greater than
1200 m. In Table 1, the sedimentary cover is mainly from the Cretaceous
Hailang Group's water-bearing rock formation, and the Eogene
Huanghua Group's water-bearing rock formation, Quaternary soft
deposits and water-bearing basalt rock formation are sparsely distribut-
ed (Li et al., 2007). The lithology is mainly sandstone, siltstone, clay, and
argillite. The thermal conductivity of the clay stone, siltstone, argilla-
ceous siltstone, and ne sandstone is 1.98 TCU, 4.76 TCU, 5.00 TCU,
and 3.98 TCU, respectively. The thermal conductivity values of the
cover rocks are smaller than those of common sedimentary rocks.
Therefore, these sediments form a favorable cap for the Earth's heat
and provide good geologic conditions for geothermal sources.
The basement of the Hailang sag is mainly Yanshanian epoch,
Variscan epoch and Lower Proterozoic granites and granodiorites (Jing
et al., 2008). Its uranium content is (2.813.38) 106, with a maxi-
mum of (1015) 105, and its leaching rate is 30%90% (Li et al.,
2007), indicating an abundance of uranium resources. The basement
has complicated morphology. Its burial depth is approximately 100
400 m, with the maximum depth being 1200 m (Jing et al., 2008).
Along the contact between the strata and basement granites, the
presence of detrition belts (weathering fracture zones) helped to form
preferable migration pathways for heat and water.
2.3. Hydrogeological characteristics
There are three types of underground water in Hailin. They are pore
water in loose rocks, ssure-pore water in clastic rocks, and ssure
water in bedrocks. The pore water in loose rocks is distributed in the
Eogene Huanghua Group's water-bearing rock formation, Quaternary
soft deposits and water-bearing rock formation. The water-bearing for-
mation for the ssure-pore water in clastic rocks is the Cretaceous
Hailang Group which consists mainly of sandstone, glutenite, and silt-
stone, interbedded with thin layers of mudstone. The ssure water in
bedrocks can be divided into weathering ssure water and structural
ssure water. The water-bearing formation of the former water is of
the granites in different periods and the Paleozoic metamorphic rocks.
The latter water exists in fault belts, the composite parts between differ-
ent structures, and the contact zones between different lithologies,
where water-rich zones may form. The reciprocation of the under-
ground water is relatively strong. Basically, the ssure water in bedrocks
ows through the soft deposits and the ssures of bedrocks inside the
depression (Jing et al., 2008).

Table 1
Strata in Hailin.

Stratum Lithological composition

Cenozoic Quaternary Alluvia, diluvial, sand clay, clayey soil, loess-like soil, bray stone. Along the Mudanjiang River
there distributed Jingbo-age basalt, less than 40 m in thickness.
Neogene Pliocene Daotaiqiao formation Unconsolidated glutenite and basalt
Eogene Eocene Huanghua formation Loose glutenite, argillite, sandstone mingled with argillite
Mesozoic Cretaceous Lower Hailang formation Sandstone, glutenite interbedded with thin layers of mudstone, siltstone
Houshigou formation Arcose, siltstone. Fractures and intermediate acidity dykite are developed in the formation.
Aotou formation Volcaniclastic rock, sedimentary rock, granite porphyry
Jurassic Upper Ningyuancun formation Acidic lava mingled with a little intermediate acidity lava and clasolite. Granite and granodiorite
Neopaleozoic Permian Granite, granodiorite, and alaskite granite
Lower Proterozoic Mashan Group Ximashan formation Granite and granodiorite, overlying alaskite granite rock formation of the late Variscan age
50 L. Zhang et al. / Journal of Applied Geophysics 118 (2015) 4765

2.4. Major faults
The DunhuaMishan and Mudanjiang Faults (Fig. 1) are lithospheric
faults in the Mudanjiang area. In the Late Jurassic and Early Cretaceous
approximately 150,000,000 years ago, the DunhuaMishan Fault Belt
formed in the eastern marginal active zones of the Eurasian plate. The
fault belt trends northeastsouthwest and is 10 to 20 km in width.
The Mudanjiang Fault Belt formed almost instantaneously with the
DunhuaMishan Fault Belt. Many synchronous subsidiary faults formed
with the two faults, which mostly trend northwest or northeast. The
Mudanjiang Fault is a supracrustal fault between the Jiamusi and
Songnen Blocks. It is a well-developed lithospheric fault cutting toward
the mantle and is a transportation channel for mantle uids into the
crust (Zhang et al., 1998).

 p
Fig. 3. (a) A signal ux x2x=20 sin 4 x ; x0; 4000: (b) The noise-added signal. The signal (a) is added with speckle noise (evenly distributed random noise with variance of 0.0001).
(c) The noise suppression result of the signal (b) with the median lter. The MSE value between the original signal and the noise-suppressed result is 0.0729. (d) The noise suppression
result of the signal (b) with the PM model. The MSE value is 0.0175 when the iteration number is 20. (e) The noise suppression result of the signal (b) with the modied method. The MSE
value is 0.0169 when the iteration number is 20. (f) Spike noise. (g) The noise-added signal. The signal (a) is added with the spike noise (f). (h) The noise suppression result of the signal
(g) with the median lter. The MSE value is 0.0638. (i) The noise suppression result of the signal (g) with the PM model. The MSE value is 0.1405 when the iteration number is 20. (j) The
noise suppression result of the signal (g) with the modied method. The MSE value is 0.1027 when the iteration number is 20. (k) The noise-added signal. The signal (a) is added with the
sine function u(x) = 3 sin(100 x). (l) The noise suppression result of the signal (k) with the median lter. The MSE value is 3.3920. (m) The noise suppression result of the signal (k) with
the PM model. The MSE value is 0.0806 when the iteration number is 20. (n) The noise suppression result of the signal (k) with the modied method. The MSE value is 0.0746 when the
iteration number is 20.
 L. Zhang et al. / Journal of Applied Geophysics 118 (2015) 4765 51

Fig. 3 (continued).

In addition to the two fault belts, Hailin is near the westeast
trending Hailang River Fault and three other major faults, which trend
northeast, northnortheast, and northwest (Fig. 1). The Hailang River
Fault spreads almost along the Hailang River (the location of the Hailang
River is shown in Fig. 2) and intersects the Mudanjiang Fault in
Mudanjiang where some subsidiary faults formed along with the
Hailang River Fault.
Under the northwestward subduction stress eld of the Pacic Plate,
the faults in Mudanjiang were frequently active and caused multiple
phases of magmatic activity and intrusion (Wan and Zhong, 1997). In
each phase of magmatic activity, magma moved along the faults in
different directions and periods, either intruding into the Earth's surface
or extruding out. In a word, the faults provided channels for magma to
move and for heat to transfer, forming a source of subsurface heat.
Ning'an (see the location of Ning'an in Fig. 1) is in the southern
Mudanjiang area. In this location, the Jingbo Lake graben is close to
the intersection of the Mudanjiang and DunhuaMishan Faults. Exploi-
tation and drilling results (Sui et al., 2011; Wang and Huang, 2014) in-
dicate that the Jingbo Lake graben can be a large-scale geothermal
eld. It is deduced that the DunhuaMishan fault zone has been contin-
uously providing heat and water for the geothermal eld (Sui et al.,
2011). This fault facilitated basaltic magmatic exhalation from the Neo-
gene to the Quaternary. The DunhuaMishan Fault controls the Neo-
gene basalts, and its subsidiary faults control the Quaternary basalts
(Wan and Zhong, 1997). The faults that dominated the Quaternary ba-
salt eruption are the main geothermal sources. The drilling data
52 L. Zhang et al. / Journal of Applied Geophysics 118 (2015) 4765
Fig. 3 (continued).
indicated that the geothermal water found in the Jingbo Lake graben is
stored in the pores of the sandstones and glutenites or the macroscopic
cracks (fractures) resulting from the fault structural activities (Sui et al.,
2011).
Our survey area (Figs. 1, 2) is chosen near the intersection of the
northnortheast-trending fault and the Hailang River Fault. We use
MT characterization to reveal whether the intersection could provide fa-
vorable space for heat and water and whether Hailin has geothermal
potential, similar to the southern part of Mudanjiang.
3. Magnetotelluric data
3.1. MT data acquisition
This survey includes 18 stations distributed along three parallel pro-
les (Line-A, Line-B, and Line-C), with an average station distance of
500 m. The locations of the MT stations are shown in Figs. 1 and 2.
The MT data were recorded with ADU06 systems manufactured by the
Metronix Company of Germany. The survey lines, Line-A, Line-B, and
Line-C, trended nearly westeast. Horizontal electric (E) and magnetic
(H) eld components were recorded simultaneously in the magnetic
northsouth and eastwest directions at each station. The vertical com-
ponent of the magnetic eld was also recorded. The electric eld in the x
direction (Ex) was measured in the northsouth direction and the eld
in the y direction (Ey) was recorded in the eastwest direction. The dis-
tance between the electrodes was approximately 100 m. The magnetic
component Hx describes the northsouth direction, Hy the eastwest
direction, and Hz into the ground surface. During the recording, the
systems were set as synchronous by GPS antennas so that the remote
reference algorithm (Gamble et al., 1979) can be used to calculate the
impedance tensors. Four frequency bands were measured at each
site: the HF band (sample frequency 40,960 Hz, frequency range
10,000500 Hz) ran 7 s by default; the LF1 band's (sample frequency
4096 Hz, frequency range 765 Hz23 Hz) recording time was 15 min;
and the LF2 (sample frequency 64 Hz, frequency range 13 Hz2.68 s)
and LF3 bands (sample frequency 2 Hz, frequency range 2.68 s
90.45 s) ran more than 12 h.
3.2. MT data processing and analysis
3.2.1. Noise suppression based on modied anisotropic diffusion
Man-made noise can be a major obstacle to the effective application
of the MT method when studying of electrical structures (Fontes et al.,
1988). The survey area was 200 m away from village settlements and
was somewhat interfered by noise. The noise in the survey area includ-
ed spikes or other random noise. We performed noise identication and
the suppression of time series segments to improve the quality of the
data. A modied anisotropic-diffusion-based method was applied for
the MT time series data to suppress noise.
Anisotropic diffusion lters have been used to smooth 3-D seismic
data (Fehmers and Hocker, 2003) and remove aliasing artifacts from
aeromagnetic data (Smith and O'Connell, 2005). The features of conven-
tional anisotropic diffusion (i.e., the PM model proposed by Perona and
Malik, 1990) include intra-region smoothing and edge (abrupt varia-
tions or boundaries in anomalies, usually those with relatively large gra-
dients) preservation. The relevant equations are listed in Appendix A.
The PM model overshadows some commonly-used smoothing lters
(for example, the median lter) due to its edge-preserving feature.
However, the model still has its deciencies: it sometimes cannot suc-
cessfully deal with noise in small spaces or abrupt changes with large
gradients (Alvarez et al., 1992); the parameter k is not easy to select.
Our modication includes dimensionality and the selection of
diffusion coefcients. Conventional anisotropic diffusion is applied to
two-dimensional images, while the modied method is applied to
one-dimensional MT time series. We select the diffusion coefcient
adaptively; that is, a larger degree of diffusion is applied to segments
with smaller gradients, while conventional diffusion is applied to
those with larger gradients. Therefore, the deciencies of the PM
model can be overcome. The equations are shown in Appendix B.
Fig. 3 displays three types of noise (speckle, spike, and sinusoidal)
and corresponding noise suppression with the median lter, PM
model, and modied method. The PM model and modied method
both effectively suppress the speckle noise, superior to the median lter
(Fig. 3ce). These two methods are inferior to the median lter when l-
tering the spike noise (Fig. 3f) as they result in slightly larger mean
square error (MSE) values (derived between the original signal and
the noise-suppressed results), but the median lter seems to retain larg-
er burrs than the other two methods (Fig. 3hj). Smaller burrs are
retained in the results of these two methods; thus, relatively large
MSE values occur. These two methods overshadow the median lter
when suppressing the sinusoidal noise (Fig. 3ln), though they fail to
completely restore the original signal. The results show that both the
PM model and modied method can effectively suppress the noise.
The modied method inherits the advantages of the PM model, includ-
ing intra-region smoothing and edge preservation, which makes these
two methods better than the median lter. However, the modied
method is a notch above the PM model due to its adaptive selection of
diffusion coefcients, which is reected in two aspects: it can discrimi-
nate the signal and noise even where the signal curve (Fig. 3a) has small
variation; and it results in slightly smaller MSE value.
Fig. 4ab shows the raw and processed time series segment of Site
A3. Only the data in the LF2 and LF3 bands were processed. The large
spikes clearly visible in Fig. 4a are ltered out in Fig. 4b, leaving the use-
ful data untouched. The apparent resistivity and phase curves of Site A3
 L. Zhang et al. / Journal of Applied Geophysics 118 (2015) 4765 53

Fig. 4. (a) A segment of the measured (raw) time series at Site A3. (b) The data after the noise suppression with the modied method. (c) Apparent resistivity and phase curves of Site A3
before the noise suppression. (d) Apparent resistivity and phase curves of Site A3 after the noise suppression.

show improvements in their shape and amplitude after noise suppres-
sion (Fig. 4cd). Note that the noise suppression is not applied to the
whole time series data but to the segments that need noise suppression
after our manual discerning. This is performed to avoid the loss of useful
information.
3.2.2. Impedance
The time series data were primarily processed with Mapros (soft-
ware from Metronix Inc.), and mostly stable and high-quality estimates
of the impedances were yielded in a frequency band ranging from
8000 Hz to 0.01 Hz. There are commonly 46 frequency points for
each site.
We did not set an additional distant site for the remote reference
technique; instead, we applied mutual reference with the magnetic
data of synchronous MT sites. Fig. 5ab shows the effects of the mutual
reference processing without or with noise suppression combined. The
noise suppression was only applied to the data in the LF2 and LF3 bands,
as in Fig. 4d. The data from Site A3 (Fig. 4c) were improved after the pro-
cessing techniques were applied. The improvement is especially obvi-
ous at periods of approximately 0.110 s (the so-called dead band).
The mutual reference processing when combined with the noise sup-
pression has a slightly better effect (Fig. 5b).
The apparent resistivity and phase curves for the MT sites (except
Sites A6 and C6) are shown in Fig. 6. Sites A6 and C6 were excluded
54 L. Zhang et al. / Journal of Applied Geophysics 118 (2015) 4765

10000
Apparent Resistivity
XY 3.2.3. Dimensionality and strike direction analysis
YX Structural strike and dimensionality analysis is based on tensor de-
(Ohm-m) 1000
composition methods (Groom and Bailey, 1989; Swift, 1967). The skew-
100 ness (Swift, 1967) can be used to qualitatively evaluate whether
electrical structures below MT sites deviate from two-dimensionality.
10 The dimensionality analysis, which calculates the skewness of imped-
ance tensors, reveals that most of the Swift's skewness values are
1 below 0.3 (Fig. 7), which is a reection of two-dimensionality struc-
tures. Thus, the data can be approximated by 2-D characterization. The
80
Phase( )

skewness is prone to static effects. Generally, it is assumed that a 1-D

setting is dominant in the HF or LF1 frequency band. However, the
40 skewness values of Site B5 in the HF and LF1 frequency band are around
or larger than 0.5, and there exists a split between the xy- and yx-
0 components of the apparent resistivity (Fig. 6). This is indicative of a
10000 1000 100 10 1 0.1 0.01 static shift at the recorded frequencies.
Frequency(Hz) The phase sensitivity skewness values within the range 10 Hz
103 Hz are smaller than 0.3 at most sites, except for a few high frequen-
(a) cies at Site B5. The low values (less than 0.3) may indicate that the
electrical structures at the corresponding frequencies are approximately
2-D. The larger values may be related to the presence of static shifts aris-
10000
Apparent Resistivity

XY ing from near-surface inhomogeneities (geological noise).

YX
(Ohm-m)

1000 Tipper information is utilized from the measured vertical compo-

nent of the magnetic eld. The induction arrows for both real and imag-
100 inary parts are derived from the tipper (Schmucker, 1970). The plotted
real arrows are considered intuitively easier to understand and their
10 presentation is often preferred. The real arrows point away from regions
of enhanced conductivity, while the imaginary arrows change sign at a
1
period where the real parts are maximal. The induction arrows have
been meaningfully used or tailored for dimensionality analysis (Chen
80
Phase( )

40
0
10000 1000 100 10 1 0.1 0.01
Frequency(Hz)
(b)
Fig. 5. Apparent resistivity and phase curves of Site A3 after the mutual reference and noise
suppression. (a) Only the mutual reference is performed. (b) Both the mutual reference
and the noise suppression are performed.
from the following process and inversion due to their bad data quality.
The apparent resistivity and impedance phase curves of Line A and
Line B indicate that the xy and yx curves are similar in shape, generally
of the K-type or HK-type. The survey area is characterized by a low-
high-low resistivity variation from shallow to deep formations, which
is a three-layer model.
The xy and yx apparent resistivity curves of Line A are congruent for
high frequencies and split for lower frequencies, suggesting that a 2-D
structure in the deeper formation is covered by a 1-D layered structure.
The curves of Sites A3 and A5 split at a higher frequency of 1000 Hz, in-
dicating thinner 1-D structures at shallow depths. The apparent resistiv-
ity increases at a frequency of 100 Hz for Sites A1, A2, and A3 and at
1000 Hz for A4 and A5. This indicates that the thickness of this shallow
low-resistivity layer seems to decrease from west to east. The data in the
spectra of 8000 Hz to 1000 Hz were seriously interfered by noise for
Sites B1, B2, and B4, and they were omitted. An obvious static shift can
be seen for Site B5, and a slight shift can be seen for Site B3. The deeper
formation at Sites C1, C2, and C3 indicates a 1-D electrical structure,
while C4 and C5 indicate a 2-D structure. In Fig. 2, the location of Site
C4 is close to the outcropped migmatitic granodiorite of Variscan age.
The dead-band effect caused a general uncertainty for the data in the
spectra of a few Hz to 10 s for Site C4, which is reected as large error
bars.
et al., 2004). Note that some authors choose to rotate the real part by
180 to make it point toward conductors. Over a 2-D structure, the
real parts of the induction vectors are orthogonal to the geoelectric
strike and can be used to resolve the 90 ambiguity in the strike direc-
tions derived from tensor decomposition (Padilha et al., 2006).
The induction arrows of the stations along the three proles are plot-
ted in Fig. 8. The data do not present signicant variations in the resistiv-
ity structures, and the arrows in the low frequency bands (below 1 Hz)
are very small. The arrows in the frequency band (101 Hz) are large, in-
dicating a roughly northsouth strike direction. These arrows consis-
tently point along the prole direction. The arrows at the frequencies
larger than 10 Hz mostly point northwest or westnorthwest. Fig. 8 in-
dicates that the geoelectric strike may be northeast, northnortheast, or
northsouth. As mentioned above, the real induction arrows should
point away from good conductors in a two-dimensional setting. The ar-
rows may hint at a conductive anomaly body beneath the MT sites.
From the behavior of the arrows, we can conclude that a 2-D interpreta-
tion will be meaningful for the data.
Strike direction information is calculated based on Groom and Bailey
(GB) impedance tensor decomposition (Groom and Bahr, 1992;
Groom and Bailey, 1989; Jones and Groom, 1993; McNeice and Jones,
2001), as shown in Figs. 9 and 10. Rose diagrams are used to depict G
B strike directions of all of the sites for whole frequencies (Fig. 9) and
the following four bands (Fig. 10): 30010 Hz, 101 Hz, 10.1 Hz, and
0.10.01 Hz. Two dominant trends appear in Fig. 9a, and there are
three rather clear trends in Fig. 9b and c. The calculations for the four
frequency bands of Prole Line-C (Fig. 10) also show that the major
strike direction is not unique and thus is difcult to determine. Mean
strikes were computed for the four frequency bands and are shown in
Fig. 11. In the frequency band of 30010 Hz, the mean strike of the pro-
les is northeast or eastnortheast (Fig. 11a). In the LF2 frequency band
(101 Hz) a signicant scatter occurs for Prole Line-B and the mean
strike is northeast, northnortheast, eastnortheast, or nearly west
east (Fig. 11b). The change of strike suggests that there may be some
contamination by the dead band effect at these periods. There is little
variation among the sites of Prole Line-A, with a mean strike of north
northeast. The low-frequency bands (0.10.01 Hz and 10.1 Hz) show a
 L. Zhang et al. / Journal of Applied Geophysics 118 (2015) 4765 55
XY YX
10000 10000 10000
Apparent Resistivity

1000 1000
(Ohm-m)

1000
100 100 100
10 10 10
1 1 1
Phase( )

80 80 80
40 40 40
0 0 0
100001000 100 10 1 0.1 0.01 10000 1000 100 10 1 0.1 0.01 10000 1000 100 10 1 0.1 0.01
A1 A2 A3
10000 10000 10000
Apparent Resistivity

1000 1000 1000

(Ohm-m)

100 100 100

10 10 10
1 1 1
Phase( )

80 80 80
40 40 40
0 0 0
100001000 100 10 1 0.1 0.01 100001000 100 10 1 0.1 0.01 100001000 100 10 1 0.1 0.01
A4 A5 B1
10000 10000 10000
Apparent Resistivity

1000 1000 1000

(Ohm-m)

100 100 100

10 10 10
1 1 1
Phase( )

80 80 80
40 40 40
0 0 0
100001000 100 10 1 0.1 0.01 10000 1000 100 10 1 0.1 0.01 100001000 100 10 1 0.1 0.01
B2 B3 B4
10000 10000
Apparent Resistivity

10000
1000 1000
(Ohm-m)

1000
100 100 100
10 10 10
1 1 1
80
Phase( )

80 80
40 40 40
0 0 0
100001000 100 10 1 0.1 0.01 10000 1000 100 10 1 0.1 0.01 100001000 100 10 1 0.1 0.01
B5 B6 C1
10000 10000 10000
Apparent Resistivity

1000 1000 1000

(Ohm-m)

100 100 100

10 10 10
1 1 1
Phase( )

80 80 80
40 40 40
0 0 0
100001000 100 10 1 0.1 0.01 100001000 100 10 1 0.1 0.01 100001000 100 10 1 0.1 0.01
C2 C3 C4
10000 Frequency(Hz) Frequency(Hz)
Apparent Resistivity

1000
(Ohm-m)

100
10
1
Phase( )
80
40
0
10000 1000 100 10 1 0.1 0.01
C5
Frequency(Hz)
Fig. 6. Apparent resistivity and phase curves of the MT sites.
56
A1 A2 A3 A4
1000
Frequency(Hz)
100
10
0.1
0.01
0 0.5 0 0.5 0 0.5 0 0.5
Fig. 7. Skewness of the impedance tensors as dened by Swift (the missing frequency points are the points that were deleted before the skewness calculation due to the bad quality of the
apparent resistivity and phase).
consistent strike of northeast or northnortheast (Fig. 11cd). As men-
tioned in the previous section regarding the tectonic setting, the defor-
mation structures in the area are mainly northsouth linear compaction
folds. The area is close to the northnortheast- and northeast-trending
major faults. The mean strike arrows are generally parallel to these
major faults. According to the eld layout of each MT site, the Ex compo-
nent is in the northsouth direction. We did not rotate the data accord-
ing to Figs. 9 and 10 due to the scattered strike directions for the three
proles. Instead, the data were rotated by approximately 40 based on
Fig. 11. After the rotation the xy component corresponds to the TE polar-
ization mode in which electric currents ow along the faults, while the
yx component corresponds to the TM mode with electric currents
owing normal to the faults.
3.2.4. Static shift correction
Static shifts distorted the apparent resistivity data of Sites B5 and B3.
Several techniques have been developed and tested during the previous
decades for static shift correction/removal (Jones, 1988; Meju, 1996;
Ogawa and Uchida, 1996; Pellerin and Hohmann, 1990; Sternberg
et al., 1988; Tournerie et al., 2004, 2007). Generally, transient electro-
magnetic (TEM) measurements are utilized to correct such effects. Set-
ting a large error for the apparent resistivity during inversion is also an
effective method to accommodate the static shift (Ogawa, 2002). We
had no access to any TEM data during the survey, so we tried a correc-
tion based on the principle of similarity between the MT curves of adja-
cent sites (Wang, 1992). To be specic, we rst calculated the average
value of the apparent resistivity data in the high-frequency band, for
Site B5 and its adjacent sites without the static shift. Then, we moved
the apparent resistivity curves of Site B5 as a whole downwards or up-
wards according to the difference between the average values.
4. MT inversion
The above-mentioned analysis demonstrates that the subsurface
electrical structure of the study area can be approximated by 2-D char-
acterization. In view of some successful cases of geothermal eld explo-
ration (Bai et al., 2001; Harinarayana et al., 2006), 2-D inversions are
available. Two-dimensional inversion schemes can be applied if the
MT data validate a two-dimensional structure along some or all of the
prole (Harinarayana et al., 2006). Conventional 3-D trial-and-error for-
ward modeling of limited soundings may not always lead to a less un-
equivocal model in the absence of accurately quantied a priori
information about the study area (Bai et al., 2001).
We employed the nonlinear conjugate-gradient algorithm code of
Rodi and Mackie (2001) to carry out the 2-D inversions. The inversion
code has been previously tested and proven to exhibit stable conver-
gence in practical applications (Xiao et al., 2011, 2013). This algorithm
L. Zhang et al. / Journal of Applied Geophysics 118 (2015) 4765
A5 B1 B2 B3 B4 B5 B6 C1 C2 C3 C4 C5
0 0.5 0 0.5 0 0.5 0 0.5 0 0.5 0 0.5 0 0.5 0 0.5 0 0.5 0 0.5 0 0.5 0 0.5
Skewness
accounts for the smoothness of a magnetotelluric sounding and its in-
sensitivity to sharp, small-scale contrasts favors least-structure models.
In the inversion of the MT data, the initial model was given a homoge-
neous half space with 100 m and incorporates the topography from
the three MT proles. The TE and TM mode phases and apparent resis-
tivities were inverted simultaneously with 100 iterations. After 30 iter-
ations, the root mean square (RMS) error values between the models
and original data were all smaller than 5%. The error oors were initially
given as 25%, and then the phase error oor was reduced to forcibly t
the model to the phase angle (the nal value is 5%). Afterwards, the
error oor for the apparent resistivity was lowered to 5% as well because
the phase is generally better estimated by the processing than by the ap-
parent resistivity. Various regularization parameters ( from 1 to 30)
were tested, and was assigned as 1. Numerous experiments have to
be conducted to achieve a best-tting and reliable model. The tting sit-
uations between the data and model responses were analyzed for all of
the sites and frequencies. A reference well is approximately 2000 m
away from the survey area (see the blue star in Fig. 2) and reached
the Cretaceous Housigou formation. The resistivities of the shallow
layers from the well logging were used as constraints during the inver-
sion. Thus a reliable representation of the resistivities can be obtained
from the inversion.
There are many reviews regarding selecting different polarization
data for 2-D inversions (Berdichevsky et al., 1998; Jones, 2006; Ledo
et al., 2002; Tauber et al., 2003; Unsworth et al., 2004; Wannamaker
et al., 1984). By changing the mesh size of the initial models with differ-
ent polarization data, we compared the obtained model roughness and
the size, shape, and boundaries of the electrical features resolved by the
data to determine which polarization mode data can delineate stable
models. Finally, we chose the joint TE + TM-mode inversion as the re-
sult which generates the smoothest resistivity model consistent with
the data, and all structures in the resulting model are required by the
data. The proles were extended on left and right sides during the
modeling. The extended parts were intercepted after the inversions.
Fig. 12 shows the nal models together with the site-by-site RMS
values. The overall RMS of the three proles is approximately 2.2, and
the RMS of an individual site is always below 2.5. The RMS values
show good correspondence between the raw data and the model
responses.
To determine the sensitivity of the data, a 2D synthetic model
(Fig. 13a) was designed and its model responses in the range of 8000
0.01 Hz were calculated with the forward modeling, and then the
model was recovered from the synthetic data with the NLCG inversion
using the TE + TM polarization mode. The result (Fig. 13b) shows that
the inversion can recover the narrow-topped structure. The densely dis-
tributed contours on both sides of the structure indicate the boundaries
separating high resistivity and low resistivity.
 L. Zhang et al. / Journal of Applied Geophysics 118 (2015) 4765 57

315 45

270 90
0 10 20 30

225 135

180

(a)

315 45

270 90
0 5 10 15 20 25

225 135

180

(b)

315 45

270 90
0 5 10 15 20 25

Fig. 8. Induction arrows in unrotated geomagnetic coordinates for the stations (redreal
induction arrows; blueimaginary induction arrows). (a) Prole Line-A. (b) Prole Line- 225 135
B. (c) Prole Line-C.

180

2D forward modeling was then performed to test whether the resis- (c)
tivity and shape beneath Site C2 are workable. The forward model was
constructed by replacing the area with a rectangle. Such a way has Fig. 9. Rose diagrams depicting the electric strike directions for all frequency bands.
been proved effective to help determine the inversion (Xiao et al., (a) Prole Line-A. (b) Prole Line-B. (c) Prole Line-C.
2012). The 1000 m rectangle is at the depth of 250 m and with the
bottom depth of 4000 m and width of 450 m. The responses of the
model were calculated so as to get the RMS mist of each site on Line-
C (Table 2). The RMS values of the model beneath Sites C2 and C3 are
58 L. Zhang et al. / Journal of Applied Geophysics 118 (2015) 4765
0 0
315 45
270
0 1 2 3 4 5
225 135
180
(a)
0 0
315 45
270
0 1 2 3 4 5
225 135
180
(c)
Fig. 10. Rose diagrams depicting the electric strike directions averaged for 4 bands (Prole Line-C). (a) 30010 Hz. (b) 101 Hz. (c) 10.1 Hz. (d) 0.10.01 Hz.
larger than those of the inversion result in Fig. 12c. The superior ts in
the inversion indicate that the relatively-low, narrow-topped structure
is likely the more reliable representation of the subsurface.
The effective detection depth of the MT method is related to the
penetration depth. The penetration depth is approximately 47.959 km
and the equivalent depth of investigation is approximately 33.943 km
when the frequency is given 0.011 Hz (the minimum frequency) and re-
sistivity is 100 m. The penetration depth is approximately 15.166 km
and the investigation depth is approximately 10.734 km when the resis-
tivity is changed to 10 m. Therefore, the resistivity models can be
well resolved down to 4 km even though the longest prole is only
2.5 km long.
The surface and shallow layers (lower than 500 m in depth) of the
three proles have the lowest resistivity (approximately 440 m).
The low-resistivity layer of Prole Line-A is the thickest, and that of
Prole Line-C is the thinnest, from 50 m to 200 m in depth. The low-
resistivity formations correspond to the Quaternary clay, Neogene
glutenite, and Cretaceous Hailang Group formations which have a
maximum thickness of approximately 800 m. Beneath Site C2, the
conductive cap layer has a thickness of approximately 120 m. The layers
with denser resistivity contours (resistivity of approximately 40
1000 m) are underneath the lowest-resistivity layers. In Fig. 12a, b,
and c, deeper formations (deeper than 500 m) are characteristic of rel-
atively low resistivity in between the highly resistive parts (resistivity of
approximately 160010,000 m). A relatively low-resistivity structure
(resistivity of approximately 100600 m) in Fig. 12c is cone-shaped
with a narrow top and wide bottom. The upper width of the structure
is approximately 350 m and the lower is approximately 800 m. The
315 45
90 270 90
0 2 4 6
225 135
180
(b)
315 45
90 270 90
0 2 4 6
225 135
180
(d)
top depth of the structure is approximately 250 m and the bottom
depth is at least 3500 m. The top of the structure is beneath Site C2.
The high-resistivity parts may correspond to the granites or granodio-
rites from the basement. Beneath Site C2, an intermediate resistivity
layer with a thickness of approximately 100 m exists in between the
structure and conductive cap layer. The western part of the basement
ascends eastwards, with the top's burial depth changing from 700 m
to 200 m. The eastern part thickens eastwards and north-eastwards.
The geoelectrical distribution of the structure can be well delineated
with lengthwise sections along the survey proles in Fig. 14. The 2-D re-
sistivity models in Fig. 14 are also obtained with the NLCG inversion
code using joint TE + TM impedance data. The models also show a dis-
tinct structure whose shape and resistivity features may indicate a pos-
sibly connected conductive zone in this area.
The electrical slices at different depths are shown in Fig. 15. The ren-
dering views of the proles (Fig. 16) clearly illustrate the perspective
imaging of the low-resistivity structure and look intuitively direct
when compared with common electrical slices. The images were creat-
ed using 2-D Gaussian transfer functions and volume rendering (Zhou
and Hansen, 2013). The rendering display is a supplementary represen-
tation of the slices as we can take a glance at the structure from different
perspectives. To highlight the structure, Fig. 17 only depicts the render-
ing characterization of the anomalies with resistivities in the range 126
501 m (i.e., 2.12.7 in Lg values). It can be seen that at the depth of
3500 m the base of the structure has an area of approximately
2,250,000 m2. The bottom depth of the reservoir can be even deeper ac-
cording to Figs. 16 and 17. The western part of the structure's base is
thicker than the eastern part.
 L. Zhang et al. / Journal of Applied Geophysics 118 (2015) 4765
Fig. 11. Map of the MT sites with arrows showing mean strike direction in four frequency
bands. (a) 30010 Hz. (b) 101 Hz. (c) 10.1 Hz. (d) 0.10.01 Hz.
5. Discussion
5.1. Geophysical interpretation
The 2-D inversions (Figs. 12, 14) and rendering views (Figs. 1617)
reveal the presence of a relatively low-resistivity, anomalous structure
59
under Site C2 that is embedded in the highly resistive basement and
overlain by the conductive sedimentary cover. What is the origin of
the relatively low resistivities? Three causes are estimated as below.
(1) Fractured zones may be present in the basement. Usually, the re-
sistivity of unaltered and non-fractured granites or granodiorites
is approximately 5 103106 m. When they are fractured or
lled with uids, especially hot water, their resistivity may de-
crease to a few hundred or even lower than a hundred m.
Granites and granodiorites have very low porosity and perme-
ability and thus have very poor water abundance. Therefore,
only if structural ssures or fractures are present, such rocks
can transmit water and heat. According to the exploration results
of the controlled-source audio-frequency electromagnetics and
MT (Ye, 2011), the fractured granite basement at the Jingbo
lake graben, Ning'an, has relatively low resistivity in the range
1001000 m, as the basement is fractured and water-
bearing. The well logging data of the Jingbo lake graben show
that the resistivity of the late Variscan-age granite geothermal
reservoir is 133.8506.7 m. The anomalous structure in Hailin
has the resistivity of 100600 m. Thus, it is possible that the
basement under Site C2 has ssures or fractures and contains
hot water, producing the relatively low resistivities observed.
The MT sites are very close to the Hailang River Fault. The fault
may result in the fractured zones.
(2) The rendering views (Figs. 1617) indicate that the structure
looks like a shoot. Did magma in the deep intrude into the base-
ment in the form of a shoot? As mentioned in a previous section,
under the northwestward subduction stress eld of the Pacic
Plate, magma intruded in different directions and periods during
the magmatic activities. In this survey area, magma moved along
the Hailang River Fault and condensed after intrusion. The intru-
sive rocks in the area are mainly granites or granodiorites. Even
though the rocks are hot, they cannot produce the relatively
low resistivities. When the rocks are fractured and lled with
hot water, they may accord with the MT result.
(3) The Cretaceous water-bearing formation may persistently sub-
side and form a stable reservoir because of the continuous and
strong structural activities of the faults since the Mesozoic.
Controlled-source audio-frequency electromagnetic proles in-
dicate that Cretaceous sandstones subsided and formed a large-
scale geothermal reservoir in the Huinan section along the
DunhuaMishan Fault due to the strong fault structural activities
(Ding et al., 2014). The Huinan section is 350 km away from the
Hailin area. The Cretaceous water-bearing formation in the Hailin
survey area consists mainly of sandstone, glutenite, and siltstone,
interbedded with thin layers of mudstone. Usually, sandstones or
glutenites have resistivities of 101000 m. When they are
water- and mud-bearing, their resistivities can be much lower.
In combination with the resistivities estimated by Archie's law,
it is not probable that such a subsiding Cretaceous water-
bearing formation can produce the relatively low resistivities ob-
served. In addition, according to the geological setting, the bot-
tom depth of the structure indicates it is not a Cretaceous
formation. The inversion and rendering displays (Figs. 1217)
show that the structure may connect with a deeper low-
resistivity source at the depth larger than 3500 m.
It is most probable that a combination of the fault activity and
magma intrusion formed the basement fractures where the water
from the Hailang River and atmospheric precipitation seeped in and
was heated. This is the cause of the relatively low resistivity.
The electrical conductivity features revealed by the magnetotelluric
data indicate favorable storage space for a zonal geothermal reservoir.
The size and shape of the anomalous structure appear to agree with a
60 L. Zhang et al. / Journal of Applied Geophysics 118 (2015) 4765

geothermal source's requirements and are similar to those of the geo-
thermal system depicted by Wright et al. (1985). According to Wright
et al. (1985), a low-resistivity zone produced by the brines and clays
capping a geothermal system provides a feature that can be easily de-
tectable by electromagnetic methods; the relatively higher resistivity
section below the clay cap and highly resistive surroundings are some-
how indicative for a high-temperature geothermal system (Johnston
et al., 1992) and represent a possible drilling target. Although the lithol-
ogy and resistivity of the capping formation and the structure below
Hailin are not completely consistent with those of the system described

RMS
2
1
0

West A1 A2 A3 A4 A5 East
0

-500

-1000
ohm-m
Lg
-1500 3.8
Depth(m)

3.4
-2000
3

2.6
-2500
2.2

-3000 1.8

1.4
-3500
1

-4000 0.6
0 500 1000 1500
Distance(m)

(a)

3
RMS

2
1
0

West B1 B2 B3 B4 B5 B6 East
0

-500

-1000
ohm-m
Lg
Depth(m)

-1500 3.8

3.4
-2000
3

2.6
-2500
2.2

-3000 1.8

1.4
-3500
1

-4000 0.6
0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500
Distance(m)

(b)
Fig. 12. 2-D inversion of the proles (joint TE + TM mode). (The resistivity values are the results after the common logarithm calculation. The site-by-site RMS values are shown above the
models.) (a) Line-A. (b) Line-B. (c) Line-C.
 L. Zhang et al. / Journal of Applied Geophysics 118 (2015) 4765 61

RMS
2
1
0

West Drilling well East

C1 C2 C3 C4 C5
0

-500

-1000
ohm-m

-1500 3.8
Depth(m)

3.4
-2000
3

2.6
-2500
2.2

-3000 1.8

1.4
-3500
1

-4000 0.6
0 500 1000 1500 2000
Distance(m)

(c)
Fig. 12 (continued).

by Wright et al. (1985) and Johnston et al. (1992), the shape (narrow
top and wide bottom) and size of the structures are alike, indicating fa-
vorable storage space for geothermal water.
Nevertheless, the MT result only shows the electrical resistivity fea-
ture and structure. It has to be combined with geological conditions to
predict the occurrence of a geothermal reservoir.

5.2. Geological factors of geothermal sources

The generation of geothermal resources needs not only geothermal

gradient variations but also suitable structures, magmatic (volcanic) ac-
tivity, storage space for groundwater, migration pathways, and closure
(capping formation) conditions. According to the geological background
introduced in a previous section, these conditions are present in this
study area.
The fractured zones of the faults in Mudanjiang facilitate the migra-
tion and supplementation of heat and groundwater (Sui et al., 2011). As
mentioned before, the sedimentary formations with large thicknesses Fig. 13. A synthetic model (a) and the inversion (joint TE + TM mode) (b). The model is
prevent subsurface heat from diffusing; rocks with some porosity are similar to the structure of Line-C (Fig. 12c) and its sides and bottom are largely extended
when modeling. The model is of 100 m homogeneous half-space in the inversion. After
helpful to divert water. Poor thermal conductivity enables the cap
the inversion only the part is shown in (b). The RMS is 1.1.
rocks to insulate the heat. The Hailang River that ows through the
MT survey area provides sufcient groundwater supplementation. The
river water and atmospheric precipitation permeate the ground water temperature may have reached 120 C at a depth of 2000 m.
through the surface faults and fractured zones and slowly travel into The hydraulic discharge of the well is 100 m3/h.
the reservoir. The water continuously absorbs the heat conveyed from The correspondence between the MT and drilling results (tempera-
the faults and the granite basement. ture and depth) is very meaningful. Taking into account the well's tem-
An exploratory well (see the dark blue arrow in Fig. 12c) was drilled perature records when interpreting the posterior resistivity distribution
near Site C2 after the MT survey, reaching almost 655 m depth. This al- can be useful to reduce the uncertainty of the EM inversion results
lows the resistivity distribution of the MT proles to be correlated with
the drilling and lithologic logs obtained from the well (the logs are not Table 2
permitted to be published, so they are not shown in this paper). The RMS ts.
drilling result of the exploratory well revealed that hot water began to
Site C1 Site C2 Site C3 Site C4 Site C5
be injected where the drilling depth was 172 m; the groundwater tem-
perature was 42 C when the drilling depth was 360 m and as high as Inversion model in Fig. 12c 1.10 1.08 0.93 1.18 1.24
Forward model 1.41 3.35 2.85 1.37 1.29
85 C when the depth was 655 m. The drilling logs indicated that
62 L. Zhang et al. / Journal of Applied Geophysics 118 (2015) 4765

C1 C2 C3 C4 C5

B1 B2 B3 B6
B4 B5

A1 A2 A3 A4
A5

A1 B1 C1 A2 B2 C2 A3 B3 C3 A4 B4 C4 A5 B5 C5
0 0 0 0 0

-500 -500 -500 -500 -500 ohm-m

Lg
-1000 -1000 3.8
-1000 -1000 -1000
3.4
-1500 -1500 -1500
Depth(m)

-1500 -1500
3

-2000 -2000 -2000 -2000 -2000

2.6

-2500 -2500 -2500 2.2

-2500 -2500
1.8
-3000 -3000 -3000 -3000 -3000
1.4

-3500 -3500 -3500 -3500 -3500

1

-4000 -4000 -4000 -4000 -4000 0.6

0 500 1000 1500 2000 0 500 1000 1500 2000 0 500 1000 1500 2000 0 500 1000 1500 2000 0 500 1000 1500 2000
Distance(m)

Fig. 14. 2-D inversion of the lengthwise survey lines (joint TE + TM mode). (The resistivity values are the results after the common logarithm calculations).

(especially when using 1-D or 2-D inversion schemes) (Spichak and
Manzella, 2009). By comparing the resistivity distributions with the
temperature, the validity of the location and dimensions of the estimat-
ed reservoirs could be conrmed (Asaue et al., 2006).
Based on the geological conditions, we infer four geological factors
that inuence the geothermal sources of Hailin.
(1) Large areas of granites form the major thermal source in the
study area. Different types of rocks have different amounts of ra-
dioactive elements; among them, granites have the highest heat
production rate. The radioactive heat produced by the granites
has strong sustainability and thus has affected the geothermal
eld in different development stages. Granites are also important
heat sources in other areas of China. For example, the geothermal
reservoir of the Rehai (hot sea) eld in Tengchong, Yunan Prov-
ince, is made of the Late Cretaceous granite (Liao et al., 1991).
The geotemperature eld of the Songliao Basin is mainly deter-
mined by large areas of granite in the basement (He, 2012).
(2) Heat from crust and mantle sources has been delivered through
rocks or faults to the surface, providing stable deep-seated ther-
mal sources for the regional geothermal eld. The burial depth
of the Moho in the study area is approximately 3031 km
(Jiang et al., 2006). The comparatively thin crust facilitates the
overow of heat outwards.
(3) In view of the heat generation in the Ning'an reservoir (Sui et al.,
2011), we deduce that the faults and their subsidiary faults in
Hailin may generate heat due to mechanical friction during
structural activity, thus forming another heat source for the geo-
thermal site. In addition, the faults are favorable channels for the
movement of deep heat into the upper strata.
(4) As mentioned before, the content ratio of radioactive elements in
the Ning'an Basin is relatively high, which helps the formation of
heat resources.

Fig. 15. Slice plot of the proles. Fig. 16. Rendering display of the proles.
 L. Zhang et al. / Journal of Applied Geophysics 118 (2015) 4765
Fig. 17. Rendering display of structures with resistivity ranging from 126 to 501 m
(i.e., 2.12.75 in Lg values).
6. Conclusion
Geothermal resources are closely related to the conditions of deep
structures. The MT method, which is one appropriate method for solv-
ing deep geologic problems, has unique advantages. The reconstructed
2-D images and rendering visualization meaningfully depict the geo-
thermal structure in the area. The fault activities and magma intrusion
may result in the fractures of the basement, which are lled with hot
water and thus produce the relatively low resistivity (approximately
100600 m). The good agreement between the MT inversions and
the drilling result shows that the MT method can provide useful depic-
tions of the geothermal reservoir.
Moreover, modern 3-D modeling and inversion techniques are rec-
ommended to unravel the deep resistivity structures and boundaries
in deep parts of the geothermal reservoir. The further work will be to in-
vestigate whether the 3-D modeling and imaging can avoid artifacts in-
herent in the 2-D data analysis. Because 3-D MT inversion and modeling
requires signicant computational resources and time (Newman and
Alumbaugh, 2000; Newman et al., 2003), it was more efcient to build
an initial 3-D resistivity model from the 2-D imaged sections. This
starting model will be rened subsequently through 3-D inversion pro-
cess. The rendering display of the models resolved from 3-D inversions
will be a meaningful 3-D visualization.
The modied anisotropic-diffusion-based method has been tested
with the synthetic signals and MT data from Hailin. The results demon-
strate that the method can effectively suppress noise and perform better
than the median ltering and conventional PM model. Nevertheless,
further work is needed to address different types of real noise that are
acquired in eld and adapt the suppression accordingly. With the
rapid development of industrialization and population in China, electro-
magnetic signals have been polluted by various interferences, and
denoising will be an indispensable part of MT data processing. Noise
suppression will be very promising to help restore real signals.
The MT exploration of the geothermal reservoir can provide valuable
constraints on the physical conditions within the Mudanjiang Fault
zone. It has guiding signicance for the exploration of other geothermal
resources along the Mudanjiang Fault. Favorable structures and path-
ways for water and heat can be paid attention to especially in granite
areas.
63
Acknowledgments
We thank Dr. Bernhard Friedrichs and Dr. Ulrich Matzander of
Metronix Company, Germany, for their earnest help and valuable sug-
gestions. We acknowledge the reviewers and editors for their construc-
tive remarks and suggestions. Prof. Randy Mackie is acknowledged for
providing the free version of the NLCG inversion code. We thank Prof.
Kong Xiangru and Prof. Chen Xiaobin for their instructive help. Dr. Xu
Ya participated in the data collection. Dr. Weijian Hu helped to modify
the gures. This work was nancially supported by the National Natural
Science Foundation of China (NSFC) (grant no. 41174091), the open
project offered by the State Key Laboratory of Petroleum Resource and
Prospecting, China University of Petroleum (PRP/open-1110), and the
National Major Project of China (2011ZX05008-006-30).
Appendix A
The PM model proposed by Perona and Malik (1990) is a thermal
diffusion partial differential equation and is applied to two-
dimensional images:
8
< ux; y; t
divg kuku ; A  1
: t
ut 0 t 0
where u(x, y, t) is the image matrix P(x, y) with respect to the space
variables, x and y are the width and height of the matrix, respectively,
div is the divergence operator, is the gradient operator, u0(x) is initial
signal, and t is the scale-space parameter. g(u) is the diffusion
coefcient of the diffusion equation, which is a decreasing function. In
this way, the diffusion process is inhibited around the edges where
the gradient is high. g(u) has the form of a Lorentzian distribution
function:
1
g u ; A  2
1 kuk=k2
or
kuk=k2
g u e : A  3
The scale spaces generated by these two functions are different:
the rst favors wide regions over smaller ones, while the second fa-
vors high-contrast edges over low-contrast ones. The parameter k
is the diffusion threshold, which controls the rate that the diffusion
coefcient decreases as the absolute value of the image gradient in-
creases. The value of k is set in relation to the gradient strength of
the edges that are to be preserved during the diffusion. When u
is much larger than k, the diffusion is suppressed and the edges can
be preserved.
The denoising principle of the PM model is as follows: detect the
gradient variation caused by noise using the gradient operator, then
suppress the minor gradient variation caused by noise and preserve
the major gradient variation caused by edges using the diffusion
equation. More details can be seen in the literature written by
Perona and Malik (1990) and other relevant papers, which are wide-
ly published.
Appendix B
The modied method differs from the PM model in two aspects: the
diffusion equation is made for 1-D time series, and the diffusion coef-
cient is adaptively selected based on the characteristics of the data.
64 L. Zhang et al. / Journal of Applied Geophysics 118 (2015) 4765
The method uses the following diffusion equation:
8 Earth Planet. Inter. 52, 3040.
< ux; t
divg kuku : B  1
: t
ut 0 t 0
The diffusion coefcient g(u) is modied and adaptively
selected:
8 Manoj, C., Naganjaneyulu, K., 2006. Exploration of geothermal structure in Puga geo-
gkuk e
> kMux;t k=k
2
>
< ; if kuk kk
g kuk  e
kMux;t sk=k
2 2
kuk=k
> e ; if kk kuk k k
>
: kuk=k
2 He, X.P., 2012. The distribution characteristics and resource evaluation of geothermal res-
g kuk e ; if kuk k k
B  2
where u(x, t) is the time series P(x) varying with the space variable t and
M is the median ltering. k is related to the degree of noise and is given
a relatively small value (5), empiric or experimental. Provided that k
and k are given, and are obtained through curve tting (Wang
et al., 2006).
A time series is a sequence of observations that is typically measured
at successive points in time and spaced at uniform time intervals. The
series value is plotted on the vertical axis and the time on the horizontal
axis.
The gradient operator in the diffusion equations performs as an edge
detector. The edge detector of an image matrix is the difference calcula-
tion of one matrix element with its neighbors in four directions. Howev-
er, the detector only considers two directions, i.e., left or right, for the
one-dimensional problem.
The data values of the images are in the range from 0 to 255. Thus,
the diffusion threshold k is usually given an empiric value. However, a
1-D seeking method is used for the 1-D time series data to select an op-
timum k value.
The diffusion equation of the modied method is equal to the 1-D
form of the PM model; therefore, the modied method can inherit the
advantages of the PM model. Nevertheless, the modication of the diffu-
sion coefcient makes a difference. The PM model uses only one form of
the diffusion coefcient (Eqs. (A-2) or (A-3)) for the whole data, but the
modied method uses three forms (Eq. (B-2)) according to the gradient
variation. Through the adaptive selection of the diffusion coefcient, a
larger degree of diffusion is applied to segments with smaller gradients,
while the PM model is applied to those with larger gradients. When the
gradient is very small, the median lter replaces the gradient operator
for the diffusion coefcient (see Eq. (B-2)). This adaptive selection can
increase the discrimination ability.
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