Large-scale seismic thermal anomaly linked to hot fluid expulsion from a deep aquifer

A 200 km-wide thermal anomaly was recorded by thermal infrared satellite data in a heavily faulted region of the South China Sea, at the time of the 1999 Chi-Chi earthquake in Taiwan. Subsurface data, including vitrinite reflectance data, indicate anomalously hot fluid flow in porous aquifers in the geological record for the same region. These observations link a seismic thermal anomaly to the long-term expulsion of hot fluid from a deep, overpressured aquifer.