ADVANCES IN STUDIES ON GEOTHERMAL RESOURCES IN CHINA

Based on recent year’s advances in geothermal resources studies and explorations in China, this paper reviews the basic distributive characteristics of hot springs in the uplifted area and geothermal water in the Meso-Cenozoic sedimentary basins, suggests that two hydrothermal activity concentrated zones (South Tibet Autonomous Region - West Sichuan Province - West Yunnan Province and coastalarea of Southeast China), one large basin(North China Basin) and two smaller basins(Weihe Basin and Leiqiong Basin) are major areas of study and exploration of geothermal resources in China continent, considers that geothermal resources in China have certain potential of exploitation and should be used, but the scale of exploitation seems to be limited, they cannot occupy an important position in energy supply and can only be regarded as a supplementary energy source.