Institute: GEOMAR, Helmholtz Center for Ocean Research Kiel
Title: Ph.D. Candidate
Country/Region: Chile
Period: 2019/05/13 ～ 2019/06/06
Theme: Comparative research on thermal regime in Chile Triple Junction and Nankai/Japan Trench, based on methane hydrate and heat flow data
Host: Masataka KINOSHITA
Introduction: I'm finishing my PhD in the Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research (GEOMAR), Germany. My thesis work is focused on gas hydrates and heat flow along the Chilean continental margin. Basically, I used seismic reflection profiles to identify the BSR-depth and, therefore, to estimate the heat flow on a regional scale. The results were very interesting, not only because we found huge amount of gas hydrates offshore Chile but also we could identify in the most anomalous area, surrounding the Chile Triple Junction (where the Nazca, Antarctica and South America plates meets), that the heat flow was not so high as expected, maybe related with the high hydrothermal activity systems. During last January, I met Prof. Masa Kinoshita and now I'm visiting the ERI with the aim to gain a better understanding of the thermal regime of this complex region. Together with Prof. Masa, we want to elucidate the main control of the thermal regime at the triple junction and, thus, to model de temperature at the plate interface from heat flow data.
Fiscal Year: 2019