Mud volcano Shikhzarly

Mud volcano is situated within Maraza region nearby the same name village, 38km south-east off Shamakhy town. Its cone is confined to near-crestal part of Shikhzarly feature. It is a large and most active mud volcano within Gobustan region. Its absolute height measures 640m, whereas elevation above the surrounding terrain is 150 m.

Since 1848 there had been recorded its 21 eruptions; the last one in March, 2004. Many eruptions were accompanied by inflamed gases, column of fire up to 100-300m high and relatively small amount of outburst mud breccias which amount does not exceed 7.5-

12.0 th cu m. The strongest eruption continued 2 days was accompanied by huge amount of mud breccias outburst occurred on February 12, 1902, 15 minutes after notorious catastrophic Shamahy earthquake. For the last two decades there had been quite frequent eruptions of Shikhzarly mud volcano that occurred without inflaming and insignificant amount (1-2 th cu m) of outburst breccias. Solid outbursts consist of terrigenous-carbonate rock with diversity of various shapes and size of pyrite and chalcopyrite. While last eruption that occurred without inflamed gas mud volcano outburst mud breccias which 0.9 m-thick cover occupied an area around 3.0 he, volumetric amount of which measures 2.7 th cu m.