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Heat source for the Himalayan hot springs: A view from the Puga Geothermal Field, Ladakh, India.

Ojha AK, Kumar D, Satyanarayanan M.

GEOTHERMICS

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geothermics.2025.103537 

The Himalayan hot springs are crucial for geothermal exploration, however, the source of heat for these hot springs has not been thoroughly explored. The investigation in the Puga Geothermal field in the Ladakh Himalaya, which has been considered as a magma-generated heat-supplied geothermal field. However, our results reveal that this is not a magma-supported hot spring but a fault-controlled hot spring that allows fluid to percolate to deeper depths. The other Himalayan hot springs were explored and surprisingly found a linear correlation between the age of the associated fault and the surface temperature of the hot spring. These results will have a broader impact on the exploration of Himalayan hot springs.

Cross-section reveals deeper, ~8-9 km, penetration of the surface traces of the normal faults that facilitate deeper fluid circulation. The Inset represents the boreholes with subsurface lithologies and the thermal structure marked in terms of isotherms.

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