Azernews.Az

By Amina Nazarli

Although mud volcanoes exist on all continents and in all oceans, their largest concentration is in and around the Caspian Sea.

Roughly half of the world's mud volcanoes can be seen in Azerbaijan. Mud volcanoes are markers of oil and gas deposits, along being sources of hot water, natural gas, and clay.

Jeyhun Pashayev, Director of "Group of mud volcanoes of Baku and Absheron peninsula" of the Ecology and Natural Resources Ministry, said that despite the fact that mud volcanoes are specific for Azerbaijan, eruption of mud volcanoes has already turned into a seldom phenomena.

“Annually, only 3-4 mud volcano eruptions can be observed in the country,” he told APA.

The scientist clarified that six kinds of volcanoes, including underwater, island, and active, inactive, buried and oil volcanoes, can be found in the territory of Azerbaijan.

“There are too many mud volcanoes in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea. The number of above surface and underwater mud volcanoes reaches 360. It is easy to detect underwater volcanoes by special devices. For example, in the future while searching for oil deposits in the Caspian Sea there can be found new mud volcanoes. Theretofore, the number of underwater volcanoes varies and can increase,” the expert said.

Speaking about the Otman Bozdag volcano, one of the world's largest mud volcanoes, which erupted on February 6, Pashayev said that this territory is related to the Alazan-Ayrichay-Alat valley and certain activity has been reported in this area since 2011.

“The eruption of the Otman Bozdag volcano lasted over nine minutes. As a result of the volcanic eruption, the flame rose to the height of 350 meters. Mud waste of 100,000 cubic meters covers an area of about 10-12 hectare,” he said.

Mud volcanoes are a fairly widespread geological phenomenon and over a thousand mud volcanoes are known to exist in the world.

Azerbaijan is a world leader, not only for the number but also for the activity of its volcanoes – some 60 percent of mud volcanoes are active here. Azerbaijan's mud volcanoes definitely should be part of any tourist's itinerary. Most are located on Absheron, around Baku. There are 100 near the Gobustan Reserve alone. There are another 200 on the islands of the Baku archipelago and in Shamakhi and Shirvan regions, two hours’ drive from Baku.

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Amina Nazarli is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @amina_nazarli

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