Professor Pang, director of the Geothermal Research Center, Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, was invited to participate in the 3rd European Geothermal Workshop (EGW), which was held on 15-16th October, 2014 in Karlsruhe, Germany. He gave a keynote talk entitled “Geochemistry of deep geothermal fluids”, which was warmly welcomed. Professor Pang was the only invited guest speaker to this event from a Non-European country.
In the presentation, Prof. Pang first introduced the research scope, significance and methodologies of deep geothermal fluids. He then reviewed the latest research advances using examples of global geothermal belts. He highlighted results on the genesis of acidic andesitic water in the Circum-Pacific geothermal belt, the characteristics of geothermal fluids in East African Rift Zone and the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, with emphasis on the advances and prospects of high-temperature geothermal fluids in the Himalaya geothermal belt in China. Prof. Pang discussed recent automation of multiple component solute geothermometry based chemical thermodynamics of geothermal fluids, namely the FixAl method. He pointed out that fluid circulation is a bottleneck technical problem in the development of Enhanced Geothermal System (EGS). There is scope for China and EU cooperation in this respect in order to advance research and speed up the development of deep geothermal resources in the Mediterranean-Himalayan geothermal belt.
The EGW was co-sponsored by the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, KIT, Germany and the Université de Strasbourg, UDS, France. It focused on dissemination of scientific ideas and the latest advances in European research on deep geothermal resources using EGS. More than 80 researchers as well as PhD students from 10 countries participated in the 3rd EGW.
Prof. Pang also visited laboratories for hydrology and petro-physics at the Institute of Technology, KIT, in Karlsruhe, as well as the environmental informatics laboratory at the Center of Environmental Research, UFZ, in Leipzig. He met with the editorial team of journals “Environmental Earth Science” and “Geothermal Energy” during his stay in Leipzig.
