A successful case history of reservoir mapping of the geothermal water using a high frequency EM method is presented in this paper. The high frequency electromagnetic system (MT-U5A with frequency range from 10KHz to 1Hz) is used for the data acquisition, which is its first time using in China, remote reference was used for high quality field data. J County has a known hot spring and several wells were drilled for geothermal water used by sanatoriums. The water temperature ranges from 30 Centigrade to 93 Centigrade. But the geothermal water distribute only in a little area. High frequency EM method was used to map the reservoir of the geothermal water and to explore the source of it. We found the geothermal water is saltwater here and another very useful event, that is, the apparent resistivity beyond here is quite different to the other area. Based on this, we carried out 467 high frequency EM sites here. 2-D inversion is used for data processing. Distribution area of geothermal water of different depth has been mapped by this method. Finally, we gave a acceptable interpretation of the geothermal water source. Introduction J County lies on the northern of the famous Lao Mountain, Qingdao City. It is very famous for its hot spring in Hot Spring Country. For many years, the native government was working to develop the hot spring and several wells were drilled for geothermal water. But since then, no one knows where is the best site to drill and where is the source of the geothermal water. In order to exploit the geothermal water, high frequency EM method was used for the reservoir mapping. In 1930’s, the first well in J County was drilled by Japan. This well, which has a depth of 50-60m, is a artesian well and mainly used for bathe. After that, in 1957 and 1971, six borehole were drilled by the First Hydrology Branch of Sandong Geology and Mineral Bureau, five of them have been exploited for sanatoriums, the largest depth of them is 394m. In 1993, BGP Holiday Tour Place drilled a geothermal water well here, the water’s ground temperature is 76 Centigrade. Besides, some other geological survey had been carried out in J County since 1986 to 2000, but they have no certain conclusion about the magnitude of stock and the source of geothermal water. There are two important conclusions in the former exploration and the previous test in geothermal field. One is the buried depth of the geothermal water less than 400m. The other is the temperatures and salinity of the pore water are very high here. These often contribute to decrease the bulk resistivity within a rock mass. Above two facts made high frequency EM method can be a useful tool for the geothermal investigation here. The high frequency EM method survey was conducted by staff of the Fifth Division of BGP, China National Petroleum Corporation. Funding was provided by WenQaun Country, J County. The survey was performed between March,20-June,15, 2002. At the same time, some other techniques, such as Gravity, Magnetic method, Electric sounding were carried out for the geothermal exploration, those were not considered in this paper. The interpretation results were supported by the results of the hydrology survey. Regional Geology J County is located in south-west corner of Mouping-Jimo fracture zone, which lies in the Jiaolai seg of Nudong symon fault. This region is dominated by south-west to north-east trending fault. The secondary structure is south-east to north-west trending fault. The major formation here is Cretaceous system, which is deposit of river and lake faces, mainly consists of sandstone, gravelstone and mudstone. Qinshan Group is a deposit of middle-basicty to acidity volcanic rock, Laiyang group is a group of violet dominated siltstone, packsand and gravelstone. In the hill country, downfaulted basin and the major hydrographic net valley, there are Quaternary system formations, it is the protective covering of the underlying thermal reservoir. The major neotectonic movement here is the territorial up and down movement and the activity of some faults. The lastest neotectonic movement, especially the reactivity of the faults, is the major release point of the geothermal heat. The thermal locality is mainly located in the interchannel terrace, its east and west fringes have been cut out by the river. The surface layer is greyblack donk and sludgy tenacious clay. About one meter of the uppermost layer there have plenty of precontemporary siphonaceous worm excrement, it color has been changed by the sulfidization. The microstratification of the soil strata has been unreadable because of hydrothermal alternation. The distribution range of this kind of soil is similar to which of the thermal locality. According to the result of drill hole, the depth of Quaternary system formations is 12m, it is deep than its outside layers. A possible causality is selfmade barrier layer of hydrothermal water. This is the cap layer of the thermal reservoir. adame llite orthophyre quartzitic orthophyre Intrusion quartz itic orthophyre subdante llerite felsophyre andesitic porphyrite basaltic andesitic porphyrite Subvolcanic rocks sandy clay,sand and gravel silty clay,silt and grit Quaternary basaltic andesite,andesite and trachyandensite ash tuff,tuffaceous sandstone and liparite arkose,aleurolite and mudstone interbeding tuff basaltic andesite and shale interbeding gravel Cretaceous Line 1 Line 2 Figure 1. : Geological map of J County, the blue line is the layout of the High Frequency EM method sites. Field Survey We carried out 467 High Frequency EM method sites here. The survey line is shown in figure 1(the blue line). The field work layout is shown in figure 2. Three sets of MTU-5A(Phoenix Geophysics, Canada) real-time data acquisition system with induction coils were used for data acquisition, which is its first time using in China. Each system used two pairs of nonpolarizable C-C electrodes with a separation of 25 to 50m. Two sets of system were used for base data acquisition, one set is used for remote reference data acquisition. The remote reference is fixed at 9km away from the work area, because there are many power utilization sites in the area and the topography is smooth. In order to ensure each AMT site have its remote reference, three sets of system recorded simultaneously through GPS. The MTU-5A acquires data at sample rates 24 kHz (level 2), 24 kHz (level 3), and 150 Hz. Level 4 is acquired continuously, levels 2 and 3 are acquired at an interval, which is a multiple of 1 minute. The level 3 data is acquired for 1 second (2,400 scans) starting on the UTC second. It is acquired for up to 2 seconds in the minutes when level 3 acquisition is scheduled. The level 2 data is acquired for 0.1 second (2400 scans) starting on the UTC second. It is acquired for up to 4 seconds in the minutes when level 2 acquisition is scheduled. The hole in the AMT spectrum above 1 kHz falls in level 2 so that we allowed for plenty of data to be acquired at this level. Figure 2. : Layout the data acquisition system Data Analysis The electric and magnetic field time series were transformed into the frequency domain by The TSTOFT program, which calculates estimates of the magnetotelluric signal amplitude and phase (Fourier coefficients or 'DFTS') as a function of time and frequency. It corrects for system parameters and responses so that the estimates are as nearly as possible independent of the measurement system. The program defines time windows and center frequencies in a way, which is independent of the sampling rate or data acquisition start time, so that data from two different acquisitions is easily combined in subsequent processing. The 2*2 magnetotelluric impedance tensor Z relating the horizontal electric (Ex,Ey) to the horizontal magnetic (Hx,Hy) fields was determined using the robust remote reference method provide by the Phoenix Geophysics. Most sites have high quality data because of the using the remote reference and approved capability of the MTU-5A, in addition, no powerful noise in the area. A full 2-d inversion has been done for all the survey line data set. There is a remarkable event in the result of data analysis, that is, the apparent resistivity in the known geothermal water area is quite low than which in other area. The result is presented in Figure 3(a), which is concordant with the result of electric sounding (Figure 3(b)), the known marking of freshwater area and saltwater area mainly from the former geology survey and drill. This is a very useful event for the data interpretation and the evaluation of the geothermal water because we have known form the hydrogeological survey that the geothermal water is saltwater in J County.