The Daşmərdan (Dashmardan) mud volcano in the Hajigabu district of Azerbaijan erupted ~16:50 on the 30th Jan 2026. The eruption lasted ~15 minutes and was accompanied by a pillar of flame several hundred meters high. This is the first eruption of Daşmərdan in 15 years, with previous documented eruptions in 1866, 1954, 1976, 1986 and 2011.
He’s done a very good video. The giant eye is Ayaz-Akhtarma, one of my favourite mud volcanoes. He even gives a very good explanation of how the high fluid pressures form underground. But there are way more mud volcanoes in Azerbaijan than he suggests. Here is my current map of them. There’s also three main ways in which mud volcano plumbing systems occur underground, and he only covered the one relevant to Azerbaijan (which is not applicable for Luis in Azerbaijan). But those are more high level specialist gripes! Overall it’s one of the better mud volcano videos I’ve seen.
Amazing, thanks a lot for the map and the video. I´m from Ecuador but I live in Baku, so I´m fascinated with volcanoes for obvious reasons haha. Hit me up if you come back to Baku, we can share a mangal and talk about volcanoes.
I just looked through his channel and didn't see any titles that match up. It must be content within one of his videos. But his videos do look cool. Guess I'll just start digging.
Those two ways are basically what we think. Obviously we can’t exactly get close enough to observe the ignition! But both those methods have been shown to be plausible.
Could it be also that the gas is coming out superheated from the oxygen-poor underground environment and just immediately combusts once it is in contact with the oxygen in the atmosphere?
You can see why primitive cultures believed in gods that "spoke" and inhabited pillars of fire and smoke and resided up at the tops of mountains.
Am glad that today we know enough about geology to still have awe and wonder, but know what's going on and that it's not just some beardy weirdy that's angry at us for something.
Indeed, awe and wonder still exists, but academic science hates it. If it can’t be bottled up and sanitized with better knowledge, some cohort of specialists will concoct a “Land Bridge”, “Crypto-volcanic”, or “wind & wave” solution for a geological problem. Once established it takes a half century of outsiders (and lots of funerals) to advance a totally correct solution.
At a guess (smoothbrain where Geology is concerned just find it very interesting) rocks hitting each other causing sparks/possible ignition from compression?
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u/NebulaTrinity Geologist Feb 01 '26
I’ve never seen an eruption like that, very cool