Analyzed the activities of mud volcanoes in 42 countries and in the deep areas of the Caspian, Black and Mediterranean seas located within the Alpine-Himalayan, Pacific and Central-Asian fold belts and rather passive continental margins. Given data on mud volcanoes include their morphological features, structural position and the ejecta geochemistry. The scientific results obtained earlier have been confirmed in global scale. In particular, that mud volcanism manifestation process is related to the geodynamic conditions and thermodynamic processes typical of cenozoic basins filled up with more than 15-20 km thick molassic complexes, certainly included the sediments of Paleogene to Miocene ages. More than 2500 investigated mud volcanoes of the world had been subdivided, according to classificatory gradation accepted in Azerbaijan, into the two genetically interconnected components: volcanoes and mud volcanic manifestations. 

On a level with a well-known mud volcanic provinces within convergent lithospheric plates, in the zones of accretionary prisms formation and slight tectonic tension in deepsea basins, there were distinguished the following old rivers fans: Mackenzie, Mississippi, Orinoco, Nile, Niger and others. The paragenetic relations of mud volcanoes with the zones of hydrocarbon formation in Eocene to Miocene and Pliocene sediments, revealed earlier, has been confirmed as well as their confinement mainly to the diapiric structures and mud volcanic activity relation with seismic events.      


CONTENTS

PREFACE
MUD VOLCANOES
HISTORICAL REVIEW OF MUD VOLCANOE INVESTIGATION
LEGEND


MUD VOLCANOES OF AZERBAIJAN

AZERBAIJAN AND SOUTH CASPIAN OFFSHORE AREA - A REGION OF MUD VOLCANOES MAXIMAL CONCENTRATION IN THE WORLD