Eruption of the mud volcano “Lokbatan”

Abstract

Relevance. Mud volcanoes are the main mechanism that creates the process of migration of hydrocarbons in a three-dimensional geological environment. At the same time, eruptive channels of mud volcanoes and tensile cracks created by the process of formation of diapiric structures serve as migration channels. If we take into account that almost all oil fields located in the territory of mud volcanism development are complicated by eruptive channels of mud volcanoes associated with Maikop deposits, then the mechanism of filling reservoirs of the productive stratum due to vertical migration of hydrocarbons is proved very convincingly, which is relevant for our country. The aim of this article was to study the eruptions of the Lokbatan Mud Volcano – which is one of the most famous mud volcanoes in the world due to its frequent fiery eruptions. Methods. Due to the high resolution of digital seismic equipment manufactured by Kinemetrics (USA) of the Republican Seismic Survey Center at ANAS (RSSC), records of mud volcano eruptions were recorded and analyzed. In addition, in 2022, within the framework of the international project “Expansion of the seismic network in the Caucasus and Central Asia”, 22 seismic stations manufactured by Nanometrics (Canada) were installed in Azerbaijan. For the first time in the world, in order to study the dynamics of mud volcanoes, 12 such stations were installed around the mud volcanoes Lokbatan and Otman-Bozdag. Results. Thus, it was found that the eruption of the Lokbatan volcano in 2012 during the day was characterized by 3 periods of activation. The first one occurred in the morning at 04:59:17.7 (eruption duration 7 minutes, focus depth 5 km, Е=0.64×107 J), the next ones at 09:14:40 (eruption duration 4 minutes, focus depth 5.5 km, Е= 0.70×107 J) and at 09:23:00 (duration of eruption 12 minutes, focus depth 1.2 km, Е=3.15×107 J).