Hot springs associated with geological faults on the Ecuadorian coast.

Abstract

Abstract

During the geological mapping work on the Gualleturo 1: 100 000 scale sheet, outcrops sites on the surface of hot springs located in the Ecuadorian coastal area could be recognized, specifically in Agua Caliente-Jesús María and Yanayacu-Cochancay towns, belonging of Guayas and Cañar provinces respectively. In Ecuador the presence of hot springs in these sites is not very common, because we can generally observe this related with active volcanism area, where hot springs reach high temperatures (> 50 ° C). The hot springs of Jesús María and Yanayacu have physical-chemical characteristics that can be related to geothermal or telluric hot springs types, that is, they are infiltrated into the subsoil, descending to great depths through aquifers or fissures being heated by the temperature gradient. of the Earth that gradually increases to the depth (Geothermal Gradient), and then emerges to surface with high temperatures (at 40-45 ° C) by means of faults such as the Multitude Fault, which belongs to a fault system of Andean course (NE-SW) that cross the western foothills of the Cordillera Occidental (Pallatanga Fault System) forming the tectonic contacts between oceanic terrane that were accreted to the South American Continental Plate from the late Cretaceous to the Eocene.