Mark Tingay
@marktingay.bsky.social
2.9K followers 510 following 630 posts
The Mud Volcano Guy - I love and study mud volcanoes! Geomechanics & pore pressure specialist. Opinions my own.
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marktingay.bsky.social
It basically is a natural one! It’s bringing up highly pressured mud, oil and natural gas from deep underground.
marktingay.bsky.social
Some mud volcanoes, including those in Azerbaijan, are also plumbed into an active hydrocarbon system. So a huge amount of methane is also released during the eruptions. That gas just needs a spark to ignite into a fireball. The ignition occurs naturally and there are several possible mechanisms.
marktingay.bsky.social
More information on Otman-Bozdagh, and its last fiery eruptions in 2017 and 2018, can be found in my old thread here.

bsky.app/profile/mark...
marktingay.bsky.social
🧪 The mud volcano of the day is Otman Bozdagh in Azerbaijan.

Otman Bozdagh had a spectacular big fiery eruption on the 23rd September 2018 - and one of my Azeri mud volcano loving friends, Uzeyir Mikayil, was there to capture it!

Location - Lat: 40.24, Long: 49.51
marktingay.bsky.social
⚒️🧪 Fiery eruption of Otman-Bozdagh mud volcano in Azerbaijan!

The Otman-Bozdagh mud volcano erupted at ~8:27am local time today (11/10/25).

Three eruption phases of between 4-12 minutes were recorded over an ~40 minute period.

Video source: @_yagha_
marktingay.bsky.social
⚒️🧪 This week’s massive M8.8 earthquake off Kamchatka was caused by an ~160x 480km fault surface sliding by about 9m. In contrast, these lovely itsy-bitsy faults have slips of only about 1cm or so, but are no less impressive.

Airport Road outcrop in Miri, Sarawak, Malaysia. Pen for scale.
Sedimentary rock made up of dozens of thin layers (a few mm each). The layers are all cut and offset by ~1cm by many small cracks.
marktingay.bsky.social
Nice!! Hope you and the Man are doing well!

I know you’re not on FB anymore, but it’s been nice seeing all the figures from this paper getting heavily promoted and liked by this FB group. Brings back memories of the field trip I tagged along on.

www.facebook.com/share/p/16tP...
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marktingay.bsky.social
⚒️🧪 Geophysical Institute of Peru article with preliminary findings about the new baby mud volcano reported last week.

Updates include that the mud volcano was actually noticed in Nov 2024 and the gryphon has built up over the last ~3 months.

The mud is room temperature.

www.gob.pe/institucion/...
Columna de opinión | El “volcán más pequeño del mundo”: ¿qué encontramos realmente?
El jueves 10 y viernes 11 de julio, un equipo del Instituto Geofísico del Perú (IGP) se desplazó hasta la comunidad campesina de Songoña, en el distrito de San Pablo (provincia de Canchis, Cusco), par...
www.gob.pe
marktingay.bsky.social
I’m not an expert on Californian seismicity. However, I have not heard of any unusual activity from experts, and I know there are often folks making up false alarming claims.
marktingay.bsky.social
The islands have a many mud volcanoes! Here’s my incomplete map. Many MVs are remote, and eruptions may not be reported.

Whilst the quake could potentially trigger an eruption, I note that triggered eruptions in the area have historically required larger quakes, greater than M7.0.

We will see!
Map of the Tanimbar Islands with pins marking the locations of ~20 mud volcanoes.
marktingay.bsky.social
There’s a long history of earthquake triggered mud volcano eruptions in the Tanimbar and Kai islands. I’ve found mentions in papers of triggered eruptions going back >200 years!

Most recently, the M7.9 9th Jan 2024 quake caused two tiny islands to rise up next to the big Pulau Kabawa mud volcano.
Satellite image of a round island with a mud volcano at its center. Two small islands are marked just to the south of the island where mud volcano islands rose up from the sea after the 9th Jan 2023 quake.
marktingay.bsky.social
⚒️🧪 Today’s big earthquake near the Tanimbar Islands was close and large enough to potentially trigger eruptions in the many mud volcanoes in those islands, as has previously happened numerous times in the region.

I’ve not seen any reports of mud volcanic activity, but will keep an eye out for news!
geofon.bsky.social
Magnitude : 6.6
Region: *Tanimbar Islands , Indonesia*
Time: 2025-07-14 05:49:57 UTC
Epicenter : 131.19°E 6.20°S
Depth: 66 km
*First posted at: 05:56 UTC*

https://geofon.gfz-potsdam.de/eqexplorer/events/gfz2025nqxd/general

##GEOFON ##GFZ ##earthquake ##magnitude
Map showing the earthquake of 2025-07-14 in Tanimbar Islands Region, Indonesia
marktingay.bsky.social
@brandontbishop.bsky.social interesting. Maybe you are right that it may have some magmatic link.

There are two hot mineral springs near by (one active) that have built up small cones, one ~15km away and one ~38km away.

maps.app.goo.gl/gpUD4gCHmaBy...

maps.app.goo.gl/7GiXFAynM63p...
maps.app.goo.gl
marktingay.bsky.social
Yes, I think you’re right, and I may have found the exact location! Someone has put a position in Google Maps for ‘Volcancito San Pedro’, which has photos of the mud volcano and matches with details in a local news story.

-14.19, -71.3065

Google Maps link: maps.app.goo.gl/Xou2uzs9knJg...
maps.app.goo.gl
marktingay.bsky.social
Oh yeah. The flows from mud volcanoes can be amazing with their shapes, colours, pattens and textures.
marktingay.bsky.social
I don’t think it is hot at all. I would suspect the mud is 10-30°C
marktingay.bsky.social
It’s a wonderful hobby! I have a massive amount of posts and threads on over 150 of them, but the vast majority are over on Twitter as that was my main SciComm social media before it became horrible.
marktingay.bsky.social
🤣🤣🤣 but does not wear a nappy and seems to be pooping all over the place!
marktingay.bsky.social
The geophysicist interviewed was indicating that it’s not near any active volcanism. The vent itself also doesn’t suggest that it may be hydrothermally driven. It doesn’t really look like how MVs usually look when near and influenced by volcanism.
marktingay.bsky.social
SW? I realised id gotten that wrong, but the map in the article has it NE of Cuzco!

I am hunting around to see if I can find more info, but a bit busy with other stuff at the moment. Plus, the best and most reliable info is likely in Spanish.

I will also try to contact the geophysicist mentioned.
marktingay.bsky.social
I’m not very familiar with the geology there, but, from the little I know, it seems an unusual place to find one.

This mud volcano is not related in any way to the magmatic volcanoes of the Andes.

What I do know is that it’s very cute!

Photo and article here: whatsthejam.com/world-news/w...
Small mud volcano vent with visible recently erupted dark grey mud.
marktingay.bsky.social
Peru is not at all well known for mud volcanoes!! Two active mud volcanoes have been documented in Southern Peru, but this new one is the first mud volcano I’m aware of in this part of Peru.

Photo: JamPress
A group of people standing around the new baby mud volcano. The mud volcano is about 60cm high and looks to cover an area of ~5m by 5m.
marktingay.bsky.social
🧪⚒️New baby mud volcano found in Peru!

Locals first noticed this small mud volcano just to the NW of Cuzco on the 6th of July.

It consists of a single ~60cm high gryphon that is gently erupting and bubbling away.

Awww! Welcome to the world you cute little thing!

Video: Jam Press
marktingay.bsky.social
Go home Google AI, you’re drunk!

There’s no way the fancy aristocracy characters in Cluedo would ever go to jail!
Google AI answer to the question “what happens if a player rolls doubles in Cluedo?”. The AI answers that players who roll doubles three times in a row go to jail. Despite Cluedo being about solving a murder, there is no Jail in Cluedo. The AI is confusing Cluedo with Monopoly.
marktingay.bsky.social
And here’s a nice sunset one from the November 2023 eruption.