Mud volcanoes* and earthquakes

Google-map based Azerbaijan mud volcano map

map showing mud volcanoes

* large methane mud volcanoes,
not geothermal or liquefaction features.

 mud
A mud cone on Dashgil mud volcano. Not an eruption, just normal activity. Photo by R. Mellors

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Can earthquakes trigger mud volcano eruptions? Yes!

  magnitude versus distance for eruptions
 


Stars are known eruptions that occurred on the same day as earthquakes. Small circles are all possible eruption/earthquake pairs; large circles represent cases of possible delayed acitivity. For more details, see Mellors et al., (in review)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


 

Data used in the Mellors et al. study - please let me know if you find errors or omissions!
(or have information about other mud volcano eruptions - it would be nice to create a worldwide database)

Azerbaijan eruption list

ASCII and Excel version of Aliyev et al. [2002] eruption catalog.

Please cite Aliyev et al. [2002]
Note that the original catalog contains additional information on eruption durations and other comments.
Although checked several times, conversion into electronic format may have created additional errors.
A negative number means no information.

Eruptions numbers are exactly as in the Aliyev et al [2002] catalog - note that two events are numbered 148 and 149 but numbers
151 and 152 are missing.
The dates of events 15, 33, and 34 have been revised as per correspondence with authors.

Aliyev, A. A., I. S. Guliyev, and I. S. Belov, Catalog of recorded eruptions of mud volcanoes of Azerbaijan for period of years 1810 - 2001.
Publishing-House "Nafta-Press", Baku, 89 p., 2002.

Mud volcano locations

ASCII
Excel

Please cite Mellors et al., [2006] for the full list of locations.
Mellors, R., D. Kilb, A. Aliyev, A. Gasonaov, and G. Yetirmishi, Correlations between earthquakes and large mud volcano eruptions,
Jour. Geophys. Res., in review, 2006.

Sources (indicated by Aliev_Mellors, Plank, or Scholtz in catalog).

Aliev_Mellors
Locations original taken from a map [Aliyev et al., 2002] which lacked geographical coordinates. It was registeres using a digital coastline, and
then mud volcano locations were verified where possible with satellite imagery (ASTER) by R. Mellors. Estimated error could be up to 20 km where a positive identification was not possible using imagery. These locations were also checked with other sources (see below) where available.

Plank
Plank, P., Se, S. Æ H. Svensen Æ M. Hovland Æ D. A. Banks, and B. Jamtveit, Mud and fluid migration in active mud volcanoes in Azerbaijan,
Geo-Mar Lett., 23: 258-268, 2003.

Scholtz
Scholte, K. H., Hyperspectral remote sensing and mud volcanism in Azerbaijan,
Ph.D thesis, Delft University, 2005.

Earthquake locations
Event lists were merged and duplicates removed.

ISC [1900-2001]
KS [1810-1984]

International Seismological Centre, On-line Bulletin, http://www.isc.ac.uk/Bull, Internatl. Seis. Cent., Thatcham, United Kingdom, 2004

Kondorskaya N.V. and N. V. Shebalin, editors, (1982), New catalog of strong earthquakes in the USSR,from ancient times through 1977, Report SE-31, Boulder, Colorado, NOAA/NGDC, 608 pp.