Geothermal Radiogenic Heat Production

Background:

More than 80% of the heat produced in the Earth's crust comes from granitoid rocks. When granitoid rocks form they naturally concentrate radioactive elements such as U, Th, and K, and the radiogenic decay of these elements is an exothermic reaction. The radioactive decay of these elements within a granitoid body may generate local heat anomalies and elevated geothermal gradient at relatively shallow crustal levels. In combination with other local rock properties (e.g, porosity, permeability, thermal conductivity), radiogenic heat has the potential to generate a geothermal resource. The decay of radioactive elements converts mass into radiation energy, which in turn gets converted to heat. While all naturally radioactive isotopes generate some heat, significant heat generation only occurs from the decay of 238 U ,235 U ,232 Th and 40 K. Therefore, potential heat production is governed by the concentrations of U ,Th and K in the rock. In igneous rocks, radiogenic heat production is dependent on the bulk chemistry of the rock and decreases from acidic (e.g. granite) through basic to ultra basic rock types. Therefore, granites with anomalously high concentrations of U ,Th and K are targets for calculating potential radiogenic heat production. Potential radiogenic heat production (A)from plutonic rocks can be calculated using this equation:

A (\u03BCW/m 3 )=10 -5 \u1D29 (9.52c u +2.56c K +3.48c Th )

where "c" is the concentration of radioactive elements "U" and "Th" in ppm, and "K" in %; and "\u1D29" is the rock density. Heat production constants of the natural radio-elements U, Th, K are 9.525x10 -5 , 2.561x10 -5 and 3.477x10 -9 W/kg, respectively.

Data and Methods:

Geochemical data from \~1760 samples of plutonic rocks from Yukon are used to calculate potential heat production. The calculated values for radiogenic heat production (A) are plotted over the mapped distribution of Paleozoic and younger plutonic rocks and major crustal faults are also shown for reference.

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• Form Descriptors
• Government information
• Nature and Environment
• Science and Technology
• canada
• earth-science
• geology
• geothermal
• geoyukon
• geoyukon-import
• geoyukon-import-20250714

Additional Info

• Maturity Level 1 (54%)
• Maturity Level 2 (38%)
• Maturity Level 3 (0%)
• Maturity Level 4 (0%)
• Maturity Level 5 (0%)
• Maturity Level 6 (0%)

Field	Value
Last Updated	October 20, 2025, 02:02 (UTC)
Created	October 20, 2025, 02:02 (UTC)
Domain / Topic Domain or topic of the dataset being cataloged.	Environment, Geoscientific Information
Title Title for the Dataset.	Geothermal Radiogenic Heat Production
Description A description of the dataset.	Background: More than 80% of the heat produced in the Earth's crust comes from granitoid rocks. When granitoid rocks form they naturally concentrate radioactive elements such as U, Th, and K, and the radiogenic decay of these elements is an exothermic reaction. The radioactive decay of these elements within a granitoid body may generate local heat anomalies and elevated geothermal gradient at relatively shallow crustal levels. In combination with other local rock properties (e.g, porosity, permeability, thermal conductivity), radiogenic heat has the potential to generate a geothermal resource. The decay of radioactive elements converts mass into radiation energy, which in turn gets converted to heat. While all naturally radioactive isotopes generate some heat, significant heat generation only occurs from the decay of 238 U ,235 U ,232 Th and 40 K. Therefore, potential heat production is governed by the concentrations of U ,Th and K in the rock. In igneous rocks, radiogenic heat production is dependent on the bulk chemistry of the rock and decreases from acidic (e.g. granite) through basic to ultra basic rock types. Therefore, granites with anomalously high concentrations of U ,Th and K are targets for calculating potential radiogenic heat production. Potential radiogenic heat production (A)from plutonic rocks can be calculated using this equation: A (\u03BCW/m 3 )=10 -5 \u1D29 (9.52c u +2.56c K +3.48c Th ) where "c" is the concentration of radioactive elements "U" and "Th" in ppm, and "K" in %; and "\u1D29" is the rock density. Heat production constants of the natural radio-elements U, Th, K are 9.525x10 -5 , 2.561x10 -5 and 3.477x10 -9 W/kg, respectively. Data and Methods: Geochemical data from \~1760 samples of plutonic rocks from Yukon are used to calculate potential heat production. The calculated values for radiogenic heat production (A) are plotted over the mapped distribution of Paleozoic and younger plutonic rocks and major crustal faults are also shown for reference.
Tags / Keywords Keywords/tags categorizing the dataset.	Form Descriptors Government information Nature and Environment Science and Technology canada earth-science geology geothermal geoyukon geoyukon-import geoyukon-import-20250714
Format (CSV, XLS, TXT, PDF, etc) File format of the dataset.
Dataset Size Dataset size in megabytes.
Metadata Identifier Metadata identifier – can be used as the unique identifier for catalogue entry
Published Date Published date of the dataset.	2024-02-01
Time Period Data Span (start date) Start date of the data in the dataset.
Time Period Data Span (end date) End date of time data in the dataset.
GeoSpatial Area Data Span A spatial region or named place the dataset covers.

Field	Value
Access category Type of access granted for the dataset (open, closed, service, etc).
License License used to access the dataset.	Open Government Licence - Yukon
Limits on use Limits on use of data.
Location Location of the dataset.	https://open.canada.ca/data/en/dataset/d2b3ce9c-2e7b-4ee6-8130-47f7346a7454
Data Service Data service for accessing a dataset.
Owner Owner of the dataset.	Government of Yukon | Gouvernement du Yukon
Contact Point Who to contact regarding access?	Government of Yukon; Government of Yukon; Geomatics Yukon, [email protected]
Contact Point Email The email to contact regarding access?
Publisher Publisher of the dataset.
Publisher Email Email of the publisher.	[email protected]
Author Author of the dataset.
Author Email Email of the author.
Accessed At Date the data and metadata was accessed.

Field	Value
Identifier Unique identifier for the dataset.
Language Language(s) of the dataset
Link to dataset description A URL to an external document describing the dataset.
Persistent Identifier Data is identified by a persistent identifier.
Globally Unique Identifier Data is identified by a persistent and globally unique identifier.
Contains data about individuals Does the data hold data about individuals?
Contains data about identifiable individuals Does the data hold identifiable data about individual?
Contains Indigenous Data Does the data hold data about Indigenous communities?
Portal Type Platform type of the source portal.

Field	Value
Version Version of the datatset	None
Source Source of the dataset.	None
Version notes Version notes about the dataset.
Is version of another dataset Link to dataset that it is a version of.
Other versions Link to datasets that are versions of it.
Provenance Text Provenance Text of the data.
Provenance URL Provenance URL of the data.
Temporal resolution Describes how granular the date/time data in the dataset is.
GeoSpatial resolution in meters Describes how granular (in meters) geospatial data is in the dataset.
GeoSpatial resolution (in regions) Describes how granular (in regions) geospatial data is in the dataset.

Field	Value
Indigenous Community Permission Who holds the Indigenous Community Permission. Who to contact regarding access to a dataset that has data about Indigenous communities.
Community Permission Community permission (who gave permission).
The Indigenous communities the dataset is about Indigenous communities from which data is derived.

Field	Value
Number of data rows If tabular dataset, total number of rows.
Number of data columns If tabular dataset, total number of unique columns.
Number of data cells If tabular dataset, total number of cells with data.
Number of data relations If RDF dataset, total number of triples.
Number of entities If RDF dataset, total number of entities.
Number of data properties If RDF dataset, total number of unique properties used by the triples.
Data quality Describes the quality of the data in the dataset.
Metric for data quality A metric used to measure the quality of the data, such as missing values or invalid formats.

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