Fateme Hormozzade Ghalati, who is currently working on her PhD in Earth Sciences at Carleton University, has won the Geothermal Canada Student Scholarship Award. This award recognizes the "Best student research project that will advance understanding of geothermal resources or resource production based at a Canadian institution". The winners were officially announced at the 2022 Geothermal Canada AGM that took place on June 21, 2022.
Here is a description on the research Fateme is currently working on:
Influence of Fracture and Fault systems on Fluid Flow in the Garibaldi Volcanic Belt, British Columbia
Mount Meager Volcanic Complex (with the highest geothermal potential in Canada) is situated within the Garibaldi Volcanic Belt, approximately 150 km north of Vancouver. Drilling programs at Mount Meager have defined a high enthalpy geothermal system with proven borehole temperatures higher than 250 °C. However, decades of research at Mount Meager have not defined the reliable permeable zones for sustainable energy generation. As a part of the "Garibaldi Geothermal Volcanic Belt Assessment" multi-disciplinary project (2018-004-Geoscience BC), led by the Geological Survey of Canada, Fateme's research focuses on the use of audio-magnetotelluric (AMT) data to explore for shallow geothermal resources. The main goal of her research is to evaluate the influence of fault and fracture networks on permeability and shallow fluid circulation at Mount Meager. Utilizing new AMT data, legacy MT data, and inversion techniques, a new 3-D subsurface model providing information about hydrothermal systems and fluid-flow pathways at Mount Meager will be developed. By incorporating rock properties and fracture information into the model and using machine learning methods, petrophysical trends for Mount Meager will be developed.
This project will contribute to the development of conceptual models of the hydrothermal system flow regime, which could be used to reduce the risk of developing the resources. Furthermore, the workflow, models, and petrophysical trends will help in developing geothermal reservoir models in other fields with similar geological and rock properties to Mount Meager. She is working under the supervision of geophysicist Mr. Jim Craven, Dr. Dariush Motazedian, and Dr. Steve Grasby. This research is funded by NRCan and GeoScience BC and benefited from the support of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada through Carleton University. 
Fateme Hormozzade Ghalati
Posted on: Friday, July 8, 2022