Witness Taiwan’s Flame-Crowned Mud Volcano Eruption

2024-10-21 15:49:54

The Wandan mud volcano in southern Taiwan recently erupted in a dramatic display of bubbling earth and man-made fire. It was a show that combined the raw power of nature with the cleverness of people. For almost 11 hours, four vents spewed mud up to 6.6 feet (2 meters) high. People lit the methane gas that was escaping, making a beautiful ‘crown of flames’ above the churning slurry. This eruption is the 10th of its kind in just three years, showing how unpredictable and interesting mud volcanism can be. These formations are different from regular volcanoes because they are pushed up by pressurised fluids below the surface instead of magma. This gives us a unique look at the Earth’s restless underbelly.

A Temple’s Fiery Guardian: The Wandan Mud Volcano’s Latest Outburst

On June 26, 2025, the Wandan mud volcano near Huangyuan Temple in Pingtung County erupted. Videos show the strange sight of mud geysers surrounded by huge flames. Mark Tingay, a geophysicist at the University of Adelaide, says that people in the area have been lighting the methane-rich gases with burning rags for a long time, both to lessen the effects of climate change and for the show. “It’s a controlled burn of nature’s exhaust,” Tingay said, pointing out how the community turns a geological hazard into a cultural event. The mudflows from the eruption aren’t just pretty to look at; they’ve also gotten into the temple before, covering floors and walls in thick sludge.

The Science Behind the Spectacle: Why Mud Volcanoes “Burn”

Mud volcanoes like Wandan’s get their energy from water, gas, and sediment that has been pushed up from depths of up to several kilometres. Their eruptions are cooler than those of magmatic volcanoes, but they have a lot more methane, which makes them very easy to ignite by accident or on purpose. Some mud volcanoes, like Azerbaijan’s fiery giants, catch fire on their own because of rock friction. Wandan’s flames, on the other hand, are caused by people. This practice looks amazing, but it also has a practical purpose: methane is 25 times more powerful than CO₂ as a greenhouse gas, and flaring it makes the climate less affected by it.

A Global Phenomenon: From Taiwan’s Slurry to Azerbaijan’s Infernos

The eruption in Taiwan is similar to one that happened in the Caspian Sea in 2021, when a mud volcano sent a fireball 1,640 feet (500 meters) high that could be seen from the coast of Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan is known as the “Land of Fire” because of the fires that happen there, which are often caused by oil and gas deposits that are found underground. It is home to 400 of the world’s 1,000 known mud volcanoes. At the same time, submarine mud volcanoes like the ones in the Gulf of Cadiz let out methane plumes that change the shape of the ocean floor and put underwater infrastructure at risk.

Living with a Restless Earth: The Human Toll of Mud Volcanism

For the people of Wandan, eruptions are both good and bad. Tourists come from all over to see the flames, but farmers have to deal with ruined crops and clogged drainage systems. Chen Yuyi, a leader in the village, said, “The mud covers fields and costs thousands to get rid of.” Pingtung County officials say that the sludge is not mineral waste, which means that landowners have to deal with red tape every time they clean it up. On the other hand, Azerbaijan’s offshore eruptions often don’t damage infrastructure, but the huge size of the 1958 Makarov Bank explosion shows how dangerous they can be.

Forecasting the Unpredictable: Can We Predict Mud Volcano Eruptions?

Unlike ordinary volcanoes, mud volcanoes don’t have clear warning indications. Tingay and other researchers explore for patterns. Wandan, for example, explodes every four to six months, but no one knows why. A global database of submarine mud volcanoes that will be available in 2025 hopes to make hazard models better, but there are still problems: these formations can lay dormant for decades before suddenly becoming active again. Temple guardians like Zhang Baohui in Taiwan have become unofficial eruption monitors, keeping track of phenomena that science is still trying to figure out.

Conclusion: Where Geology and Culture Collide

The Wandan mud volcano  captures the interplay between humans and volatile Earth systems, a blend of beauty and geography, and  wholly unpredictable. A burning flaring of Methane at night reveals and wonders what has to be done to marvel and account to balancing what has been done in the era of climate change. For the moment, constant flames persist as a witness to the Earth’s energetic wrath and communities that either harness or suffer.

Sources:

• LiveScience
• SSBCRACK

Mud volcano spews out flames and mud splatters , Source: YouTube , Uploaded: Formosa News (民視英語新聞)

The post
Witness Taiwan’s Mud Volcano Erupt Beneath a Dazzling Crown of Flames
appeared first on
pinare.online
.