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Mud Volcanos / Mud Volcanoes

forteanajones

Gone But Not Forgotten
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From the USGS FAQ:

Question: Can earthquakes trigger volcanic eruptions?

Answer
: Volcano eruptions have occurred shortly after earthquakes and they may be linked, but scientists are still debating the topic. Notably, an Andean volcano (Cordon Caulle) began erupting 2 days after the magnitude 9.5 1960 Chile earthquake.

Eruptions of mud volcanoes have occurred in the Andaman Islands following the recent magnitude 9.0 megathrust earthquake. Mud volcanoes consist of surface mud extrusions that vary in size from meters to several kilometers. They sometimes resemble magmatic volcanoes in appearance but they generally consist of low lying mud flows. Mud volcanoes do not involve magma. They emit mud at significantly cooler temperatures than lava, well below the ~800 degrees Celsius temperatures that characterize volcanic eruptions. Eruptions from mud volcanoes can reach heights of several hundred meters and consist of mud and sometimes burning hydrocarbon gasses. They are often associated with gas and oil fields. Mud volcanoes were known to exist in the Andaman Islands before the earthquake and in many other regions of the world.

Deadly mud volcano eruptions are extremely rare because their eruptions generally do not affect large areas. One deadly eruption in Bozdagh, Azerbaijan reportedly killed six shepherds who were camping in the caldera of a mud volcano and about 2,000 of their sheep.
 
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Mud flood threatens Java residents
By Lucy Williamson
BBC News, Sidaorjo

Thousands of people on the Indonesian island of Java have been forced from their homes by tonnes of hot mud and gas.

The sludge, which has been spewing out of the ground for more than two months, is the result of a crack in a gas drilling project near Indonesia's second city, Surabaya.

In a sign of growing international concern over the disaster, Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono visited the affected area of Sidoarjo last week.

But despite attempts by government officials and the company involved, so far nothing has managed to contain the flow.

The mud now covers around 20 square kilometres. Climb up a bank of earth at the outskirts of Shiring village and you see it - a lake of mud stretching for kilometre after kilometre.

A white plume of gas marks the spot where it all started; a crack in the earth spewing out steaming sludge.

You can count the rooftops floating in the mud - marking out factories and schools. And you can imagine the things you cannot see - the homes, the rice paddies, the furniture, the toys: whole lives buried; their owners gone, forced to run for higher ground.

'We just ran'

A few kilometres away is what one local person described as a "people market". It is a newly-built market place, not yet filled with shops.

Instead, most of the 9,000 people who have been displaced by the mud have ended up here, two families to one shop space. Motorbikes, clothes and plastic buckets mark the entrance to these new homes - a handful of belongings saved from the sludge.

"We were all scared," Suliati said, as she squatted outside one shop entrance, cooking up a dinner of fried eggs.

"The mud came up to our chest, we didn't have time to save anything from the house, we just ran to save our lives."

Behind her, her mother nodded agreement.

"Now we have to help each other just to survive," she said. "Some people borrow things from us, we borrow other things from them. We have food, but we've lost everything else - our homes, our jobs. It's a hard time for us."

Investigation

The gas company running the operation in Sidaorjo, Lapindo Brantas, has been criticised for risking the safety of local people, and allegations of corruption have soured the air.

A criminal investigation has begun into several senior executives from Lapindo and one of their sub-contractors, but the company's lawyer, Masieyh Sutiono, said the company had done nothing wrong.

Instead, he said, the company was acting responsibly towards local people by offering food and compensation to those affected by the mud, while everyone waited for the results of the police investigation.

Lapindo has been trying to stem the flow of mud, but so far nothing has worked. The government, meanwhile, is anxious to keep the sludge away from any other residential areas and is putting its faith into a series of dams meant to contain the growing lake.

Trucks carrying mounds of earth to build these new barriers rumble up and down the main highway every couple of minutes, but the dams have not always proved effective.

Earlier this month, a barrier around the village of Shiring burst, causing a second wave of refugees. Many of those living close to the affected area have now moved out, and many of those that remain are thinking about it.

Rainy season

Mrs Jhoni watches the trucks come and go from the front of her button and bead shop on the main highway. She is reluctant to leave her customers, and her shop - which is raised a little way above the main road - will give her some protection.

But she says she is playing a "wait and see" game and is ready to run whenever things take a turn for the worse.

Officials are working against the clock.

The rainy season is due to begin in two months time, and plans to build a stronger, concrete barrier to cope with it have not convinced many of the experts brought in to find a solution. Heavy rainfall, they say, could break through the barrier in a matter of hours.

Pressure from environmentalists has so far prevented them from using the river to divert tonnes of sludge into the Java Sea.

But with pressure also growing from the local population to find a solution, and with the volume of mud increasing and the rainy season approaching, everyone in Sidoarjo is having to think hard about who will pay the cost of fixing the problem.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-p ... 798501.stm

I don't think I've heard of this type of problem before, mud welling up from the ground.
I guess it's related to some form of volcanic activity, but you'd normally drill for gas in sedimentary rocks, not volcanic ones. A bit of a mystery.

NOTE: This mud volcano - popularly known as "Lusi", is more formally known as the Sidoarjo Mud Flow:
Sidoarjo mud flow
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidoarjo_mud_flow
 
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Yes very strange I wonder if the company involved is a subsidiary of one of the big energy concerns. I hope it gets sorted before the rains come that could turn an ordinary nightmare into one of epic proportions. I wonder if it ties in with the upsurge of tectonic an volcanic activity that seems to be affecting that area in the last few years.
 
I've done a little news prospecting. I assumed that the mud came solely from some activity of the drilling company -- injecting water into the ground is often done in oil fields, though I don't know about gas wells. But this exercept from a Jakarta Post article says otherwise:

The sludge spewing from a well operated by Lapindo Brantas Inc. originates from as deep as 9,000 feet below the surface. The flow of mud, dubbed a "mud volcano" by geologists, is coming from liquid sediment formed over five million years ago, stretching from Purwodadi in Central Java to the islands of Bali and Lombok, Andang said.

Geological websites explain that a mud volcano is formed by a mixture of hot water and fine sediment (mud and clay) that either pours gently from a vent in the ground like a fluid lava flow, or is ejected into the air like a lava fountain by escaping volcanic gas and boiling water.

The fine mud and clay typically originate from solid or fragmented rock, according to the U.S. Geological Survey website. Volcanic gases and heat escaping from magma deep inside the Earth turn groundwater into a hot acidic mixture that chemically changes the rock into mud.

Mud volcanoes are often associated with petroleum deposits, according to the Wikipedia website.

Indonesian journalists apparently rely on the Internet a great deal.

As for responsibility for the disaster, the site is owned jointly by well-connected Indonesian families and the Aussies -- all of whom are of course saying that it's not their fault, and the gov't should take care of the damage. Except of course that there were safety steps that they could have taken that would have prevented this all from happening.

http://www.asianews.it/view.php?l=en&art=6947

The ownership of the gas mine is divided among two local companies, PT Lapindo Brantas (50%) and PT MedcoEnergi Oil&Gas Brantas (32%) and the Australian leader in the sector, Santos Ltd (18%). The well is 3km deep. The companies said the disaster was due to “natural causes” so the government should make good the damages. Lapindo's management claimed the May 27 earthquake centered in Yogyakarta, had opened up deep faults underground, thus causing the mud to flow out. Many experts said the epicenter of the quake was over 300km away and this distance would have largely diminished the force of the blow.

At first, government experts sent to look into the causes of the mudflow said it was difficult for firms to "predict" such mishaps because of the "complex nature of the country's geology". Political analysts have observed that the Lapindo company belongs to the rich Bakrie family. All the same, in mid-June, a letter was issued by MedcoEnergi, accusing its partner, Lapido of “gross negligence” for seriously violating security measures. In particular, Lapindo allegedly failed to put a nine-inch (around 23cm) thick protective casing in the well to a depth of 8,500 feet (2,365m). This, according to experts, would have assured that the well was closed and prevented the outflow of mud, which would not have been able to escape from the ground – which is what apparently happened.

Shortly afterwards, Indonesia's vice president, Jusuf Kalla, announced that Lapindo would compensate thousands of people affected by the mud flows. The company, however, has said it will be able to compensate affected people in as much as it is insured against similar events. Meanwhile, the people displaced by the mudflow have been crammed into sheds and stores.

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Indonesia blames Australia for everything that goes wrong in their part of the world.
A couple of years back an illegal immigrant boat sunk well inside indonesian waters killing everyone on board, yet the Indons blamed Australia for it, when there was evidence that the Polari (indonesian police) had loaded the people on the boat at gun point.
They have been known to tow similar boats out of their territorial waters so that they are no longer Indonesias problem.
 
The strange thing about this story is its very low profile a couple of us did a big trawl y/day and couldn't find video or many stories.
 
crunchy5 said:
The strange thing about this story is its very low profile a couple of us did a big trawl y/day and couldn't find video or many stories.

It is odd; in the states, people aren't much interested in anything that happens beyond the borders. But I would think much of the rest of the world would be interested. This is unusual, huge, and ongoing. If it ever menaces a large city, maybe the journos will wake up.

Mind you, if this had happened one foot inside the U.S. borders the media would have been blitzed with hourly updates for the last two months and an endless stream of "human interest" stories.
 
Catastrophic mudslide could last 100 years, say scientists

· Land in East Java likely to collapse as thousands flee
· Attempts to seal channels will 'probably not succeed'

John Aglionby in Jakarta
Tuesday September 26, 2006
The Guardian

Mud, gas and boiling water that have been gushing out of the ground in East Java since May, submerging half a dozen villages and 20 factories, could continue for a century with "catastrophic consequences", European experts said yesterday. Efforts to seal the channels through which the mud is escaping are unlikely to succeed, and it is impossible to tell how much fluid remains underground, according to a University of Oslo geology team.

"It's unlikely to stop permanently for a long time," Adriano Mazzini told a press conference in Jakarta. "It's hard to say when the overpressure will have been fully released. It could be one, 10 or 100 years. But to seal it will be very, very difficult." According to Mr Mazzini, unless the flow stops soon, the affected land, which has already starting sinking, could subside significantly. "It will be catastrophic," he said.
The mud started flowing on May 29, a couple of hundred metres from where the gas company PT Lapindo Brantas was drilling an exploratory well nearly two miles deep. It has been gushing up to 50,000 cubic metres a day - or two large bathsfull a second - ever since.

At least four villages will almost certainly have to be destroyed, and two others have been flooded. More than 11,000 people have evacuated their homes.

On September 8, the central government, fearing a political disaster as well as the environmental impact, took command of the operation to stem the flow, control the flood (which now covers about 400 hectares (1,000 acres) and supervise the social programmes for the affected communities. A spokesman for the government team told the Guardian the latest findings were "useful and worrying". He said: "They show we still have a lot of work to do."

Observers said the president, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, had been wise to intervene. "This could be the achilles heel of this government," said Dennis Heffernan, a political and business consultant. "Unless more resources are put to work, we're in danger of a catastrophe on the level of the Exxon Valdez."

The Exxon Valdez was an oil tanker that sank in Alaska in 1989, causing widespread environmental devastation.

All the expenses are being borne by Lapindo, which is controlled by the family of Indonesia's senior welfare minister, Aburizal Bakrie. Estimated costs are thought to be well over £70m, while the company's insurance only covered £15m.

Mr Mazzini, whose team has studied mud volcanoes for more than a decade and spent just under a week on site, said it was impossible to say conclusively whether the drilling caused the disaster.

There has been speculation that the disaster was caused by Lapindo failing to use a proper casing during drilling. Mr Mazzini said this was unlikely. "This is a huge case of overpressure," he said. "A casing would not have made any difference, I don't think. But I'm not a drilling expert."

The mudflow is thought to have been caused by one of four possibilities: gas-charged fluids breaching coral mounds on top of the limestone rock; a magmatic reaction generating gas; a new-born mud volcano; or hydrothermal fluids migrating from neighbouring areas.

http://environment.guardian.co.uk/waste ... 98,00.html
 
Indonesian mud volcano 'caused by gas drilling'

A mud volcano that is erupting in Indonesia was most probably caused by drilling for gas, according to the first published scientific study. The event forced the evacuation of many villages, and will leave 11,000 people permanently displaced.

The study concludes that the eruption "appears to have been triggered by drilling of over-pressured porous and permeable limestones". The study is published in the magazine of the Geological Society of America, GSA Today.

The volcano is disgorging between 7000 and 150,000 cubic metres (245,000 and 5.25 million cubic feet, respectively) of mud every day and the flow "will continue for many months and possibly years to come", the report warns.

In the coming months, subsidence will occur over an area several kilometres wide and there is likely to be "more dramatic collapse" around the main vent, forming a crater.

An area of at least 10 square kilometres (3.9 square miles) around the volcano will be uninhabitable for years, say the researchers, led by Richard Davies, at the University of Durham, UK. The British experts analysed satellite images of the area to make their study.

Steaming mud
The volcano, known locally as Lusi, has been spewing steaming mud since 29 May 2006, submerging four villages, fields and factories. It erupted from a gas well near Surabaya, East Java, that was operated by Lapindo Brantas Inc.

The scientists say that seepage of mud and water are usually a preventable hazard when exploring for oil and gas. "It is standard industry procedure that this kind of drilling requires the use of steel casing to support the borehole, and protect against the pressure of fluids such as water, oil or gas," says Davies.

"In the case of Lusi, a limestone water aquifer was drilled into while the lower part of the borehole was not protected by casing," he says. The aquifers are about 3 km (1.9 miles) below the surface.

The report adds: "The borehole provided a pressure connection between the aquifers in the limestones and overpressured mud in overlying units. As this was not protected by steel casing, the pressure induced hydraulic fracturing, and fractures propagated to the surface, where pore fluid and some entrained sediment started to erupt."

No quake link
Davies said the case in Indonesia was similar to a blowout that happened off the shore of Brunei in 1979: "Just as is most probably the case with Lusi, the Brunei event was caused by drilling and it took an international oil company almost 30 years and 20 relief wells before the eruption stopped."

Last week, Indonesia's minister for social welfare, Aburizal Bakrie, whose family firm controls Lapindo Brantas, said the volcano was a "natural disaster" unrelated to the drilling activities.

"It is not because of the Lapindo drill but it is because of the quake," he said, referring to an earthquake on 27 May 2006 near the ancient city of Yogyakarta that killed around 6000 people.

But this scenario is ruled out by the study. It concludes that the quake was not to blame, mainly because two days elapsed before mud volcano erupted, and no other mud volcanoes occurred in the region after the quake.

In December 2006, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono ordered Lapindo to pay 3.8 trillion rupiah ($421 million) in compensation and costs related to the mud flow.

http://environment.newscientist.com/art ... lling.html
 
It takes BALLS to stop a volcano!

Balls used to plug Java mud flow

Indonesian engineers have lowered the first series of concrete balls into a mud volcano to try to plug an eruption which has destroyed thousands of homes.
At least four of the giant, chain-linked spheres were dropped into the crater, but technical problems halted work at the East Java site.

Workers plan to drop 1,500 balls, each weighing up to 250kgs (500lbs).

Some scientists say the mud geyser was likely triggered by gas drilling, but the gas company blames an earthquake.

The geyser began spouting the noxious muck nine months ago at a gas drilling site in East Java.

It has since buried factories and thousands of homes, and displaced an estimated 13,000 people.

Experts warn the torrent could continue for months, if not years, to come.

The Indonesian government has been working to halt the mud with a network of dams and by channelling some of it into the sea, but with little success so far.

'Broken cable'

A team of geologists and engineers hope the plan, believed to have never been tried before, will reduce the amount of mud flowing from the site by up to 70%.

Each 1.5m-long metal chain has four concrete balls suspended from it; two with a 40cm (16 inch) diameter and two with a 20cm diameter.

The team had planned to begin slowly, dropping five to 10 chains on the first day, then increasing the number until they insert up to 50 chains per day.

But the process was halted on the first day of the operation when a steel cable hoisting the balls broke, officials quoted by the Associated Press said

The disaster began on 29 May 2006 in the Porong sub district of Sidoarjo in Eastern Java, close to Indonesia's second city of Surabaya.

Some independent scientists believe it was triggered by the drilling work of gas prospectors PT Lapindo Brantas.

Other research supports the company's assertion that it was a natural disaster resulting from increased seismic activity following a major earthquake two days before the mud began flowing.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-p ... 392995.stm
 
I heard a bit about this on the radio a couple of weeks ago, I can't recall how much mud is coming out but it is a huge amount in the tens of thousand of cubic metres a day. The oil co in question is owned by the family of a minister in the govt and didn't use sheaths around the bore hole as you are meant to, they ran out and carried on drilling. The last time this happened it was a big international oil company involved and with all their resources it took twenty years to stop.
 
He said "Anal Beads". I'm not sure why.
 
I'm not sure why either...

:?

Possibly not an apt analogy
 
This Mud Volcano is covered in the first part of...

How Earth Made Us - 5. Human Planet

Series in which Professor Iain Stewart looks at how four geological forces have shaped human history.

He explores the most recently established force, humans. It's easy to think of the human impact on the planet as a negative one, but as Iain discovers, this isn't always the case. It is clear that humans have unprecedented control over many of the planet's geological cycles; the question is, how will the human race use this power?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0 ... an_Planet/

(Lots of interesting stuff here, including AGW.

But one (of many) Thought for the Day moments:

Humanity, in its building and mining operations, moves more material per year now than the whole planet does by normal geological processes...
:shock: )
 
A new island of mud and rock has emerged from the sea off Pakistan, apparently caused by a major earthquake. Its emergence is attributed to a sub-surface mud volcano triggered by the earthquake.

A major earthquake hit a remote part of western Pakistan on Tuesday, killing at least 45 people and prompting a new island to rise from the sea just off the country's southern coast. ...

The earthquake was so powerful that it caused the seabed to rise and create a small, mountain-like island about 600 meters (yards) off Pakistan's Gwadar coastline in the Arabian Sea.

Television channels showed images of a stretch of rocky terrain rising above the sea level, with a crowd of bewildered people gathering on the shore to witness the rare phenomenon. ...
FULL ARTICLE AT: http://news.yahoo.com/strong-earthquake ... 10723.html
 
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QUETTA: In a rare development, an island emerged off Gwadar coast after a powerful earthquake of 7.7 magnitude struck Pakistan on Tuesday.

According to DIG Gwadar Moazzam Jah, the island's altitude is 20 to 40 feet and width around 100 feet.

Talking to Geo news, the DIG said that the island emerged at a distance of 350 feet in the sea from the Gwadar coast.

According to the Meteorological Department, the epicentre of the 7.7 magnitude earthquake was 120Km southwest of Khuzdar in Balochistan province at a depth of 10 kilometres. The US Geological Survey measured the earthquake at 7.8.

SOURCE: (With Photo): http://www.thenews.com.pk/article-11967 ... fter-quake
 
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Has anyone checked to see if this Island has non-euclidean geometry by chance? :shock:
 
Rubyait said:
Indonesian mud volcano 'caused by gas drilling'

A mud volcano that is erupting in Indonesia was most probably caused by drilling for gas, according to the first published scientific study. The event forced the evacuation of many villages, and will leave 11,000 people permanently displaced.

The study concludes that the eruption "appears to have been triggered by drilling of over-pressured porous and permeable limestones". The study is published in the magazine of the Geological Society of America, GSA Today.

http://environment.newscientist.com/art ... lling.html
Mud volcano to stop 'by decade's end'
By Jonathan Amos, Science correspondent, BBC News, San Francisco

Scientists say the eruption of the Lusi mud volcano in Indonesia should be all but over by the end of the decade - much sooner than previous estimates.
The assessment is based on satellite data that records the rate at which the ground is changing in response to the material spewing up on to the surface.
Researchers say the system is losing pressure rapidly.

The eruption, which began in the Porong subdistrict of Sidoarjo in East Java in 2006, is the largest of its kind.
The gooey, noxious muck has displaced tens of thousands of people with economic costs that exceed $4bn to date.

Initially, more than 100,000 tonnes a day was oozing to the surface. This has decreased tenfold, and an analysis based on Japanese satellite observations of ground subsidence suggests a further tenfold decrease can be expected in the next few years.
"By 2017, it should be more or less over," said Prof Michael Manga from the University of California at Berkeley, US.
"In real numbers, that's 1,000 tonnes a day - a thousand pick-up trucks per day of mud. Small enough that it won't be a hazard, [but] maybe interesting enough still to be a tourist destination," he told BBC News.
"I expect [then] that if the eruption rate drops below some number, that it will just plug itself and stop erupting."

Previous best estimates had indicated Lusi could go on erupting for 25 years or more.
Prof Manga was speaking here in San Francisco at the American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fall Meeting, the world's largest annual gathering of Earth scientists.
He and colleagues have used a technique known as interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) to assess the evolution of the eruption.
This involved combining a series of repeat images of the volcano acquired from space by Japan's ALOS satellite to measure ground surface height changes around the volcano.

Over the course of several years, the surrounding land is recorded falling tens of centimetres as a result of material deep in the Earth being driven up and out on to the surface. However, the rate of subsidence has declined dramatically, indicating Lusi is losing its vigour.
And this is reflected in the changed behaviour that can be observed at the surface.
"There isn't a constant eruption there anymore; it's actually pulsing now," said Prof Richard Davies from Durham University, UK. "And that pulsing is a very good sign that the pressure itself has dropped off. What's driving the eruption now is a burping from all the gas that's coming up.
"The gas makes it behave like a geyser, almost - a bit like Old Faithful in Yellowstone National Park. You can almost set your watch by these pulses."

Lusi is thought to have been triggered by a drilling operation that went wrong.
An expert panel convened at a meeting of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists in Cape Town in 2008 concluded that drilling fluid used to maintain pressure in the well was too dense for the strength of the surrounding rock. The resulting blow-out, or "kick", re-activated old faults, creating new pathways for water and sediment to rise up to the surface.

Groups have tried to argue that an earthquake two days prior to the mud volcano's appearance was responsible. But most geologists say this tremor was too small and too far away (280km) to have had any effect.

Prof Manga cautions that there will always be some uncertainty about the future course of the eruption, and any forecast is made on the assumption that the system continues to behave in the same way it has in the past. But he adds that the latest evidence ought to be more encouraging for those who live in the region.

"In the scientific literature, for this particular eruption, there are three fundamentally different models for where the mud is coming from, where the flow is coming from, and what's happening," he told BBC News.
"So, even though we have great data available, it's not clear yet whether we understand exactly how this eruption works.
"But with the data we have and the data we will collect in the future, I'm sure we're going to learn more."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-25188259
 
Update ... The earthquake-spawned mud island in Pakistan is effectively gone now.
Pakistan's 'Earthquake Island' Has Vanished

A mud island that burst from the waters off the coast of Pakistan during a deadly earthquake in 2013 has disappeared beneath the waves.

The 6-year-old island was the product of a "mud volcano," as Live Science reported at the time. Buried mud, subject to the intense pressures of the Arabian tectonic plate grinding against the Eurasian plate, liquefied and launched toward the surface. It moved so fast that it carried rocks and boulders on top of it. Those rocks ended up on the surface of the newly formed island, which was 65 feet high, 295 feet wide and 130 feet long (20 by 90 by 40 meters). The island was named Zalzala Koh (which means "Earthquake mountain" in Urdu), according to NASA. Now, satellite images show, it's pretty much gone. ...

FULL STORY (With Photos): https://www.livescience.com/65910-mud-volcano-island-disappears.html
 
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0.jpg


The natural phenomenon is the Pugachevskiy mud volcano located on Sakhalin Island in East Russia
 
This new Scientific American article describes recent research on Lokbatan in Azerbaijan - arguably the most spectacularly active mud volcano on earth.
Giant Mud Volcano Reveals Its Powerful Explosive Secrets

Not all volcanoes belch lava. Some erupt mud—lots of it. Most mud volcanoes just gurgle up bits of muck from time to time, but one is particularly known for frequent, powerful explosions. New research explains what powers these intense eruptions and just how strong they can get.

University of Oslo mud volcanologist Adriano Mazzini and his colleagues studied Lokbatan, a mud volcano in Azerbaijan. Mazzini calls this small country just north of Iran “the kingdom of mud volcanoes.” It has hundreds, but Lokbatan is exceptional.

The volcano's first recorded eruption occurred in 1829. Roughly every five years since then it has launched plumes of mud, sometimes higher than 100 meters. Oil and methane deposits near Lokbatan tend to self-ignite during eruptions, so flames and smoke often accompany the skyrocketing mud. The sight rivals that of a traditional magma-fed volcano, Mazzini says: “They can be equally spectacular and powerful.” ...

To investigate Lokbatan's impressive eruptions, Mazzini and his colleagues placed 30 gas monitors on the volcano's flanks to sniff for escaping methane and carbon dioxide. ...

Lokbatan “degasses” at less than one-hundredth the rate of another nearby mud volcano, the researchers found. So when it does erupt, they concluded, gas escapes violently, and mud then falls back into the volcano's vent and effectively seals it. ...

The researchers also found that Lokbatan's eruptions have likely been violent enough to rip apart its crater rim. They observed three enormous chunks of sediment—the largest topping 300 train cars in volume—to the west of Lokbatan, where portions of the main crater rim are conspicuously missing. These “mega blocks” are probably pieces of crater that broke off in an eruption; the researchers used computer models to show the massive fragments could have surfed kilometers downhill atop a thick layer of flowing mud. Historical records suggest this probably happened during an 1887 eruption, according to the team's study results ...
FULL STORY: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/giant-mud-volcano-reveals-its-powerful-explosive-secrets/
 
Here are the bibliographic details and abstract from the published research report.

Adriano Mazzini, Grigorii Akhmanov, Michael Manga, Alessandra Sciarra, Ayten Huseynova, Arif Huseynov, Ibrahim Guliyev,
Explosive mud volcano eruptions and rafting of mud breccia blocks,
Earth and Planetary Science Letters, Volume 555, 2021, 116699,
ISSN 0012-821X

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.epsl.2020.116699
Abstract
Azerbaijan hosts the highest density of subaerial mud volcanoes on Earth. The morphologies characterizing these structures vary depending on their geological setting, frequency of eruption, and transport processes during the eruptions. Lokbatan is possibly the most active mud volcano on Earth exhibiting impressive bursting events every ∼5 years. These manifest with impressive gas flares that may reach more than 100 meters in height and the bursting of thousands of m3 of mud breccia resulting in spectacular mud flows that extend for more than 1.5 kilometres. Unlike other active mud volcanoes, to our knowledge Lokbatan never featured any visual evidence of enduring diffuse degassing (e.g., active pools and gryphons) at and near the central crater. Only a very small new-born gryphon was intermittently active in 2019 (with negligible flow). Gas flux measurements completed with a closed-chamber technique reveal extremely low values throughout the structure ... We suggest that after eruptive events, the mud breccia is able to seal the structure preventing gas release and thereby promoting overpressure build-up in the subsurface. This self-sealing mechanism allows a fast recharge of Lokbatan resulting in more frequent and powerful explosive episodes. Our field observations reveal the presence of large (up to ∼50,000 m3) stratified blocks that were originally part of a large crater cone. These blocks were rafted >1 km from the vent on top of mud breccia flows. We use a model based on lubrication theory to show that it is reasonable to transport blocks this large and this far provided the underlying mud flow was thick enough and the blocks are large enough. The presence of large rafted blocks is not a unique phenomenon observed at Lokbatan mud volcano and is documented at other large-scale structures both onshore and offshore.
SOURCE: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0012821X20306439?via=ihub
 
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