GeoForschungsZentrum Potsdam (GFZ) - Germany

The GeoForschungsZentrum Potsdam is the National German Research Centre for Earth Sciences. The GFZ plays a key role in global communication in the geosciences bundling individual research activities into major joint programs, both nationally and internationally. The International Continental Scientific Drilling Program ICDP, the European Lake Drilling Program ELDP, the International GPS Service for Geodynamics and the GEOFON Project are only some prominent examples of international cooperation in which the GFZ plays a leading role.

Research in the section Geothermics covers petrophysical methods, analyses of temperature fields, and utilization of geothermal resources. Interdisciplinary projects are focused on natural and artificial transport processes in the upper and lower Earth's crust. For this purpose process parameters and interactions of petrophysically controlled processes are studied. The measurement and interpretation of temperature and pressure data, hydraulic, elastic, electrical, and thermal parameters of rocks and their variation within the lithosphere are main topics. GFZ role in the project will be testing the temperature limits of an existing fiber-optic distributed temperature sensing system at high temperature and developing concepts to reach systems beyond the limits.

Contact:	Dr. Jan Henninges
	GeoForschungsZentrum Potsdam elegraphenberg D-14473 Potsdam, Deutschland Phone: +49-0331 - 288 Fax: +49 0331 - 288 E-Mail: janhen@gfz-potsdam.de Website:http://www.gfz-potsdam.de/portal/-

Role in the project

GFZ provides a very novel and interesting new technology to the HITI project: the ability to instantaneously measure temperature at any depth simultaneously, using the socalled distributed temperature sensing (DTS) technology, already proven to world record depth of 4.2 km and temperatures up to 143 °C. This technique requires further attention to temperature tolerance and cable design.

GFZ role in the project will be testing the temperature limits of an existing fiber-optic distributed temperature sensing system at high temperature and developing concepts to reach systems beyond the limits.