Exploration of medium - and low - enthalpy geothermal resources in the sub - Andean area for the sustainable development of the cities of Salta province (northwestern Argentina)

In this framework, deformation due to strike-slip kinematics rather than to folding process may have focused hot fluids and driven localized thermal alteration of the cap-rock. Coupling these results together with the recently published geochemical, hydrogeological and audiomagnetotelluric data (Barcelona et al., 2013; Invernizzi et al., 2014; Chiodi et al., 2015) (CHAPTER 6), I suggest that the most favourable site for a potential future exploitation of the thermal fluids is located along the northern buried plunge of the Balboa anticline. The high temperatures reached by the thermal fluids in this area (~120°C) suggest that an undirect heat use for electric power generation could be feasible. Furthermore, the compartimentalization ruled by the NNW-SSE fault plane may guarantee, at the same time, the sustainability of the geothermal resource exploited at present by the Hotel Termas, in correspondence of the Termas anticline.