[imagesource: Mikhail Voskresenskiy / Sputnik / dpa / Picture Alliance]

The elements of water and fire are definitely testing each other’s powers at the moment.

Soon after the surface of the ocean was set on fire because of a gas leak in the Gulf of Mexico, a huge explosion was seen off the coast of Azerbaijan in the Caspian Sea on Sunday, which continued to smoulder into Monday.

While the fire in the Gulf of Mexico was caused by human intervention, the Azerbaijan explosion could have been the result of natural causes.

Local government said that the blast, which erupted in an area full of oil and gas fields, was caused by a mud volcano 75 kilometres off the coast of Baku.

Videos show the apocalyptic scene, with a fireball and smoke rising high into the sky:

The BBC reports that mud volcanoes are similar to normal volcanoes but without lava:

They are caused by water being heated deep within the Earth that mixes with rocks and minerals – when they erupt, this mixture is forced to the surface and can catch fire.

While it is unclear how a mud volcano can catch fire naturally, one theory is that it might happen when a mixture of flammable gases is ignited by sparks from rocks colliding together.

The aftermath of the eruption showed simmering flames:

Azerbaijan is nicknamed the “Land of Fire” for its rich oil and natural gas reserves, home to 400 of the world’s estimated 1 000 mud volcanoes:

So, first, Azerbaijan is the home of mud volcanoes, and has hundreds of them.

My Google Earth mud volcano map of Azerbaijan gives you and idea of just how ludicrously many mud volcanoes there are both onshore and offshore. pic.twitter.com/m5m3yAPWSV

— Mark Tingay (@CriticalStress_) July 5, 2021

That’s Dr Mark Tingay, a geophysicist at the University of Adelaide, who also mentioned on Twitter that several large mud volcanoes erupt each year in the area, and many of them can have big, violent fires.

Azerbaijan’s emergency ministry confirmed that nobody was directly impacted by this blast, and oil and gas infrastructure was not threatened, either.

[source:bbc]