Active mud volcanoes on Earth
Active mud volcanoes on Earth
Mud volcanoes are not as well-known as ‘classic’ volcanoes, which bring lava – that is, molten rock – from Earth's interior to the surface, but they are common all over the world. Geologists have discovered approximately 1800 mud volcanoes on Earth, some of them at the bottom of the sea. Almost half of these mud volcanoes are located in Azerbaijan, near the Caspian Sea coast. There, the eruption process and the flow dynamics of the escaping mud flows can be studied in-situ. The small mud volcano in the image is only a few metres high, while others are several kilometres in diameter.
