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EARTHQUAKE ›› 2020, Vol. 40 ›› Issue (3): 65-82.doi: 10.12196/j.issn.1000-3274.2020.03.006

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A Review of Researches on Land Mud Volcanoes in Northern Tianshan of Xinjiang and Southern Taiwan, China

JIANG Yu-han, GAO Xiao-qi, WANG Yang-yang, ZHANG Lei   

  1. Key Laboratory of Crustal Dynamics, Institute of Crustal Dynamics, CEA, Beijing 100085, China
  • Received:2019-08-09 Online:2020-07-31 Published:2020-07-28

Abstract: Based on the systematically introduction of the research progress, this paper comparatively analyses the geological characteristics of mud volcanoes between the southern Taiwan and the north Tianshan, Xinjiang province, including the eruption characteristics of the mud volcano in different states. The results show that the mud volcanoes in the study areas are all distributed along the fault zones, and mainly located in the anticlinal axis, which are mostly exposed to the mud-bearing layers. Besides, the geophysical characteristics show similarity in mineral compositions of the solid eruptions (quartz and montmorillonite etc.), the mud temperature of the liquid eruption, and the bubbling frequency between the aforementioned two study areas.The maximum bubble diameter and gas flow, in contrast, show obvious difference.Through comparatively analyzing the geochemical characteristics of liquid and gas eruption in the two regions, we find that the liquid eruption has the same characteristic of high salinity. Methane is the main content of the gas emissing from most of the mud volcanoes, but at volcanos carbon dioxide is the main content. The great difference in the eruptions from mud volcanoes in the two study areas, is considered to be the result of regional geological structures and climatic conditions. According to the current researches, the eruptions of mud volcanoes in both areas were caused by the increase of formation pressure. The geochemical mechanism of mud volcanoes is summarized and it has a good relationship with seismic activity, which shows that the geochemical parameters of mud volcanoes could be the potential indicators for the seismic activity.

Key words: Mud volcano, Geochemistry, Physical characteristics, Genetic mechanism, Seismic monitoring

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