Potential geopressured geothermal reservoirs in the Vicksburg Formation are limited to Hidalgo County along the Lower Texas Gulf Coast. In Hidalgo County, an area of approximately 385 square miles (designated the Vicksburg Fairway) contains up to 1,300 feet of geopressured sandstones with fluid temperatures greater than 300°F. Inplace effective permeability, however, averages less than 1 millidarcy in the Vicksburg sandstones because of fine grain size and extensive late carbonate cementation.
Hot springs and wells in West Texas and adjacent Mexico are manifestations of active convective geothermal systems concentrated in a zone along the Rio Grande between the Quitman Mountains and Big Bend National Park. Maximum temperatures are 47C and 72C for hot springs and wells in Texas and 90C for hot springs in Mexico within 5 km of the border.
The Upper Triassic Dockum Group of Texas and New Mexico is composed of 200 to 2,000 feet of complexly interrelated terrigenous clastic facies ranging from mudstone to conglomerate. The lower 200 to 1,000 feet of the Dockum accumulated in a fluvial-lacustrine basin defined by the Amarillo Uplift - Bravo Dome on the north and the Glass Mountains on the south.
