| Abstract: | The mean temperature gradient maps from surface down to top basement and down to base Tertiary correspond to the boundaries and internal features of the basin. The Landshut-Neuötting High in Eastern Bavaria is an area of relatively high temperature. The German Eastmolasse part west of this high shows extremely low temperature gradients. In the German Westmolasse area, in addition to a normal Tertiary gradient of about 25°C/km which is assumed to be the Tertiary paleogradient a steep near-surface gradient down to 500–800 m depth is deduced from the present interpretation of the measurements so that due to the southward increasing sediment thickness of the Tertiary in the flat northern margin of the basin there results a higher Tertiary mean gradient than in the south. The intramesozoic gradients are somewhat irregular, but generally tend to increase from north to south. Thus far they compensate to a certain degree the regional trend of the Tertiary gradients so that the mean gradients from surface down to top basement show smaller differences than the mean Tertiary gradients. A slight increase of the Mesozoic temperature gradients as compared with the Tertiary gradients is interpreted by both the lower heat conductivity of the consolidated and carbonate-rich Mesozoic and the northward directed water flow in the Malm karst transporting heat from the deeper southern part of the basin within the Malm karst northward at least since Pliocene time. |
