Global Heat Loss: New Estimates Using Digital Geophysical Maps And Gis Techniques
Fábio Vieira, Roberto Rodrigues Cardoso, Valiya M. Hamza · 2010
In the present work we report the progress obtained in estimating global conductive heat loss based on an updated heat flow data set and digital geophysical maps of tectonic provinces and age patterns. Modern GIS (Geographic Information Science) techniques were used in delimiting spatial domains of tectonic provinces and age patterns as sets of polygons and their intersections with areas of heat flow measurements. This procedure has allowed estimates of heat losses through area segments of intersecting “tectonic polygons” on a global scale. The main advantage of this method is that it minimizes the undesirable effects of data clustering. The heat flow maps derived exclusively on the basis of tectonic characteristics and age provinces reveal patterns that are quite similar to those derived from observational data. This result is of considerable value in the procedure used in deriving global heat flow maps where it is necessary to assign estimated values of heat flow for areas where experimental work has not been carried out.