Advective Heat Transport and the Salt Chimney Effect: A Numerical Analysis

Figure 2

Initial model configuration. A schematic diagram of the initial model setup. No flow boundaries are imposed across the bottom and sides of the model, and the top of the model is set at a constant hydraulic head 500 m below sea level. The white area represents salt rocks; the brown area represents sandstone or shale depending on the modeling run. The bottom cells (pink and blue) are all assigned a constant heat flux through sediments with the same thermal and physical properties of the overlying units.