BLIND MUD VOLCANOES OF BLACK SEA

Abstract

A new type of submarine mud volcanoes in which the channels of mud volcanic material do not reach the seabed and attenuate in the sedimentary thickness is considered. The analysis of time seismic sections shows that within the deep-water part of the Black Sea, due to certain thermodynamic conditions or structural and tectonic features of occurrence, part of mud volcanic diapirs do not go to the stage of eruption, and being located near the seabed, remain active sources of gas-fluid flows, migrating on various tectonic faults of the overlying sedimentary layer. The authors propose a new name for such volcanic structures as “blind mud volcanoes”. The nature of mud volcanism is analyzed based on mutually conditioned genetic factors: lithological, rheological, fluid-dynamic, tectonic and geodynamic. The leading role of the fluid-dynamic factor in their formation under the action of tectonic stresses of ultra-high pressures, sufficient for the breakthrough to the surface of the concentrated deep gas-fluid flows along the fracture zones in the conditions of relative stretching of the Earth's crust is shown.

Keywords

• black sea
• mud volcanoes
• diapirs
• seismic time section
• fluids