What are mud volcanoes?  

Mud volcanoes – are elevations often of flat conic form, uplifting above the locality to the height of 10 – 15 to 400m and more. Diameter of the base is 100m to 3.5 – 4.0km.

What is the linkage between mud volcanoes and oil?  

Mud volcanoes linked with hydrocarbons (HC) are ultra deep exploration wells in the sense, that they may be direct indicators of oil deposits at big depth and to provide required information for the exploration of underground sources of fuel. Both mud volcanoes and oil – gas deposits are a result of one process of oil – gas deposits generation.

Is there a similarity between mud volcanoes and magmatic volcanoes?  

Mud volcanoes and the magmatic ones are close relatives. They both are unpredictable from the point of view of their eruption. They both may form isles if they are erupted at the sea bottom. However, mud volcanoes are much more smaller and their eruptions, which though accompanied by the inflammation of HC gases and outburst of a large volume of the volcanic breccias (sometimes more than 1mln m3) unlike the eruptions of magmatic volcanoes, are short, mainly not more than 2 – 3 hours.

What are the main differences?  

They differ greatly in respect of temperature. Magmatic volcanoes are formed of melted rocks or magma. The latter creates very high temperature in the form of fire which bursts out of the cone during the eruption. Mud volcanoes are rather cool. Temperature of the mud evacuated to the earth surface is 20 – 300.

How many volcanoes are there in the world?  

It depends on what you are going to call mud volcanoes. Number of small cones (seeps) varies tens and hundreds of thousands. Nevertheless, scientists usually think, that there are about 900 mud volcanoes on the planet.

Where are mud volcanoes mainly located?  

As compared with magmatic volcanoes, the mud ones have a restricted spread in a global scale. They are located in 30 countries (Italy, Romania, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Iran, Pakistan, Burma, Malaysia, Indonesia, Colombia, Trinidad and Tobago etc.) of the world.

How many volcanoes are there in Azerbaijan?  

About 400 mud volcanoes are located in the South Caspian region. More than 300 of them are located on land of the Eastern Azerbaijan and in the adjacent water area of the Caspian Sea. For this reason, it is no mere chance that Azerbaijan is “a motherland” of mud volcanoes. One can find all types of volcanoes in Azerbaijan – burning, dormant, buried, underwater, insular and volcanoes abundantly releasing oil. Azerbaijan is a unique country in the world according to number of volcanoes, their diversity and activity.

Do mud volcanoes only exist on land? 

No. Just like the magmatic ones they exist at the sea bottom.

Why are there so many volcanoes in the territory of Azerbaijan? 

Territory of Azerbaijan is really a unique and classical region of the spread of mud volcanism on our planet. Areas of the spread of mud volcanoes in Azerbaijan are characterized by a high thickness of the sedimentary series – about 10 – 15km. In the South Caspian basin it is 25 – 30km. Hence, accumulation of a great number of mud volcanoes is related to the zones of the earth crust whch were exposed to intensive subsidence.

How large may mud volcanoes be?  

Some large land and marine volcanoes are up to 400m and more high. Diameter of their base is up to 4km.

What are the largest mud volcanoes in Azerbaijan?  

In the Absheron peninsula they are Bozdag – Gyuzdek and Otmanbozdag mud volcanoes – up to 400m high. In Gobustan they are Toragai and B.Kyanizadag – up to 400m as well.

How old are mud volcanoes?  

Large mud volcanoes existing nowdays is a result of their numerous eruptions. For the first time they started many millions years ago. According to estimations scientists determined, that in large mud volcanoes like Toragai and B.Kyanizadag there took place 6000 and 7000 eruptions respective. There exists an opinion that in Azerbaijan the mud volcanic activity for the first time started 30 – 35mln years ago in the early Miocene.

What does breccias consist of?  

Volcanic breccia consists of a mixture of half liquid clayey mass with fragments of rocks of different types and ages evacuated from different depth. They are sandstones, limestones, dolomites, clays and coarse fragmental (conglomerates) rocks. There have been identified about 90 minerals and 30 microelements in breccia. Volcanic mud is enriched by mineral salts, organic matters, microelements. It possesses medical properties and is used for the treatment of various diseases.

When are mud volcanoes most active?  

When mud volcanoes are not active for about (for instance) 10 – 30 years, they accumulate energy, activate and erupt. Scientists have determined paragenetic relation between seismicity and activation of the volcanic activity. Severe earthquakes “provoke” eruptions of mud volcanoes, especially in cases, when a volcano accumulated enough energy and is ready to erupt, and if a volcano is located at a distance of up to 100km from the epicenter (source) of the earthquake. Most frequently eruptions occur when microforms (cone-shaped hills, gryphons and salses) are not formed in their crater field later on, for instance, Lockbatan and Keireki volcanoes in Azerbaijan in the Absheron peninsula. Probably, seismic waves are a trigger for a volcano, but exact mechanism has not been determined yet. Sometimes eruptions take place for technogenic reasons.

Witness for eruptions?  

Eruptions of mud volcanoes in Azerbaijan have been recorded since 1810. For the last two hundred years, in 93 mud volcanoes there have been recorded 387 eruptions. Some volcanoes erupted more than 20 times for this period. They are Lockbatan volcano in Absheron and Shikhzarli volcano in Gobustan. There exists no information about eruptions of other 100 volcanoes, though it is obvious that they often erupted in geological past as well.

Is it possible to predict eruption? 

Just like earthquake, eruption can not be predicted. However, monitoring of mud volcanoes demonstrated that during the preparation of seismic events on volcanoes, located in the vicinity of the earthquake source, there occurs abnormal change of some components in the composition of gas (CO2, He), waters (B, SO4). There also occurs change of their discharges. This may be considered as gashydrogeochemical precursors of earthquakes.

Are mud volcanoes hazardous?  

Of course, they are, but not as much as the magmatic ones. Very rare their eruptions result in human causalities. Fortunately, most of mud volcanoes in Azerbaijan are located far from populated areas. Neverthless, eruption may be hazardous due to a high pressure inside a cone. For this reason, during eruption there occurs inflammation of gas; sometimes a column of flame is 300 – 500m high, there appear numerous fractures around the crater field. There were cases when eruptions of a volcano caused damages and losses due to its suddenness and strength. In 1902 at night there occurred eruption of Bozdag – Bobu volcano. 6 cowboys and 2000 sheep perished because they put up for the night near the crater of the volcano. In 1932 newspapers informed about human casualities during the eruption of Svinoy volcano (now Sangi - Mugan) in the Caspian Sea. For this reason, construction of dlvelling houses and buildings in the vicinity of mud volcanoes is hazardous.

Recently NASA has get in touch with Geology Institute of ANAS and with experts for mud volcanoes. What was interesting for them?

James Skinner has started to study cones, hills and elevations on Mars recently. He has determined their similarity with mud volcanoes. As Azerbaijan is a world centre of the location of volcanoes, he intends to visit us to study this natural phenomenon better. He hopes that this will facilitate the investigation of the similar founding’s in Mars.

 

 

Questions were answered by the head of department "Mud volcanoes", Geology Institute of ANAS,   prof. of geol.miner. sciences Ad. A. Aliev