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Sunday, July 27, 2025

Piparo Mud Volcano: Is Trinidad on the verge of a mud eruption?

by

14 days ago
20250713

As a uni­ver­si­ty fo­cused on us­ing re­search for the up­lift­ment of its com­mu­ni­ty, The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, St Au­gus­tine (UWI STA), the pre­mier ter­tiary in­sti­tu­tion in the re­gion pro­duc­ing world-class schol­ars, be­lieves sci­ence should be ac­ces­si­ble to the pub­lic.

We are pleased to present our me­dia se­ries, UWI Sci­en­tists Speak. In this se­ries, our sci­en­tists—three of whom re­ceived the na­tion’s high­est ho­n­our, the Or­der of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go, in 2023, and one in 2024—will show­case some of their work.

This week, we hear from dis­tin­guished sci­en­tist Os­haine Blake, Pro­fes­sor at The UWI, St Au­gus­tine Cam­pus, on the ground-break­ing re­search be­ing con­duct­ed as part of Ms Kerneese Ram­jar­rie’s PhD project on mud vol­ca­noes.

Blake is a Pro­fes­sor of Geo­me­chan­ics and Geo­physics at The UWI, St Au­gus­tine Cam­pus. He has built three world-class re­search fa­cil­i­ties at the St Au­gus­tine Cam­pus.–Prof Rose-Marie Belle An­toinePrin­ci­pal, UWI STA

In Trinidad and To­ba­go, the Pi­paro Mud Vol­cano is as mul­ti­fac­eted as the is­land it­self. For some, it is a sa­cred site where na­ture’s pow­er and spir­i­tu­al­i­ty in­ter­twine, while oth­ers see it as a fas­ci­nat­ing tourist at­trac­tion. Yet for many more, it forms a cru­cial part of the is­land’s Car­ni­val tra­di­tions, where its mud is worn with pride.

How­ev­er, the Pi­paro Mud Vol­cano is al­so a for­mi­da­ble nat­ur­al haz­ard. Be­neath this live­ly cul­tur­al sym­bol­ism lies a pow­er­ful force that de­mands our at­ten­tion. The vi­o­lent erup­tion in 1997 demon­strat­ed its pow­er, rav­aging every­thing with­in a one-mile ra­dius, dis­plac­ing 31 fam­i­lies, claim­ing live­stock, and leav­ing key in­fra­struc­ture in ru­ins (Fig­ure 1).

Un­like tra­di­tion­al vol­ca­noes that ex­pel la­va, mud vol­ca­noes act as nat­ur­al vents, emit­ting flu­idised mud and gas to the Earth’s sur­face or seafloor. These emis­sions are dri­ven by over­pres­surised con­di­tions be­neath the Earth and can oc­cur grad­u­al­ly or in more sud­den bursts, as ob­served dur­ing pe­ri­ods of height­ened ac­tiv­i­ty at the Pi­paro Mud Vol­cano in 2019 and 2024. These re­cent events un­der­score the ur­gent need for mon­i­tor­ing and im­prov­ing our un­der­stand­ing of the mud vol­cano’s struc­ture.

To achieve this, we have used a va­ri­ety of mon­i­tor­ing tech­niques across the en­tire Pi­paro Mud Vol­cano study area, in­clud­ing on­go­ing GPS mon­i­tor­ing to as­sess ground de­for­ma­tion and move­ment, drone sur­veys with 3D Li­DAR to mon­i­tor sur­face changes over time, gam­ma ra­di­a­tion mon­i­tor­ing to mea­sure nat­ur­al ra­dioac­tiv­i­ty lev­els, and Elec­tri­cal Re­sis­tiv­i­ty To­mog­ra­phy (ERT) to mon­i­tor sub­sur­face struc­tures and flu­id dis­tri­b­u­tion.

Mon­i­tor­ing wells were al­so in­stalled and equipped with ad­vanced gauges and log­gers to track sur­face tem­per­a­tures, flu­id dy­nam­ics, and pore pres­sure vari­a­tions. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, core sam­ples were ob­tained for test­ing to un­der­stand the com­po­si­tion and struc­ture of the Pi­paro Mud Vol­cano. These com­bined meth­ods pro­vide a com­pre­hen­sive un­der­stand­ing of both sur­face and sub­sur­face process­es, of­fer­ing valu­able in­sights in­to the Pi­paro Mud Vol­cano’s be­hav­iour.

Among these meth­ods, ERT stands out as a pow­er­ful mon­i­tor­ing tool to ex­plore be­neath the Earth’s sur­face—like an X-ray of the ground—al­low­ing us to see the sub­sur­face struc­tures be­low with­out dig­ging. For ex­am­ple, Line 9, seen in Fig­ure 1, was one of 34 ERT sur­vey lines we ran across the Mud Vol­cano, and it in­ter­sect­ed dis­tinct rock units, which in­clud­ed a pres­surised mud flu­id reser­voir in ad­di­tion to clayey silt­stones and silty clay­stones (Fig­ure 2, Part A).

This is an in­cred­i­ble dis­cov­ery that we were not on­ly able to im­age, but al­so track over time, ob­serv­ing its move­ment, size, shape, and ex­tent of its reach be­neath the sur­face of the Pi­paro Mud Vol­cano.

Da­ta from the mon­i­tor­ing wells pro­vid­ed fur­ther de­tails of the po­ten­tial­ly in­creas­ing haz­ards of a mud erup­tion. Fig­ure 2, Part B, shows tem­per­a­ture and pres­sure mea­sure­ments from the 30-me­tre-deep mon­i­tor­ing well BH3, which is with­in the pres­surised mud flu­id reser­voir and is part of a net­work of nine strate­gi­cal­ly placed mon­i­tor­ing wells with­in the sur­vey area.

The da­ta re­veals a di­rect re­la­tion­ship be­tween pres­sure and tem­per­a­ture, with pres­sure con­sis­tent­ly in­creas­ing with­in the sys­tem over the pe­ri­od dur­ing which mea­sure­ments were tak­en. The point at which an erup­tion can hap­pen is not cur­rent­ly known, but by track­ing pres­sure fluc­tu­a­tions, we can de­ter­mine the thresh­old need­ed to trig­ger an erup­tion. This da­ta can lay the foun­da­tion for de­vel­op­ing an ear­ly warn­ing sys­tem.

This ground-break­ing re­search is the first world­wide to di­rect­ly mea­sure pres­sure with­in an ac­tive pres­surised mud flu­id reser­voir, of­fer­ing un­prece­dent­ed in­sight in­to the in­ter­nal erup­tion dy­nam­ics. These find­ings are deep­en­ing our un­der­stand­ing of erup­tion dy­nam­ics and al­so high­light the ur­gency of ex­pand­ing this re­search.

De­spite the po­ten­tial ef­fec­tive­ness of this tech­nique, its long-term suc­cess and scal­a­bil­i­ty re­quire fur­ther in-depth in­ves­ti­ga­tion. To ex­tend this pi­o­neer­ing re­search to all 32 mud vol­ca­noes in Trinidad, fi­nan­cial sup­port is cru­cial. With­out re­sources, the op­por­tu­ni­ty to mit­i­gate erup­tion risks could be lost, leav­ing com­mu­ni­ties vul­ner­a­ble.

With fund­ing, we can en­hance our abil­i­ty to mon­i­tor, pre­dict, and mit­i­gate erup­tion risks. These find­ings will feed in­to risk as­sess­ment and de­lin­eation of haz­ard zona­tion maps for at-risk com­mu­ni­ties.


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