Underground structure of terrestrial mud volcanoes and abnormal water pressure formation in Niigata, Central JAPAN

Activity of mud volcano is thought to be caused by an abnormal water pressure generated in deep underground and make a serious problem for underground constructions such as railway tunnel, underground facility for radwaste and so on. It is important to investigate the underground structure of a mud volcano and the mechanism of abnormal water formation for site selection and safety assessment of such facilities. Serious trouble such as tunnel wall collapse due to the rock swelling has happened 180m deep under mud volcanoes. It took more than 10 years to excavate the section of 150 m long. 4 terrestrial mud volcanoes were found in the Tertiary sedimentary basin in Niigata, central Japan All the mud volcanoes are distributed along the rim of the topographic basin that is located at the NE-SW trending crest of mountainous area and distributed along the wing of anticline. Geological structure inside basin is heavily disturbed. The extinct mud volcano is exposed in the side-slope of newly constructed road and the internal vent structure of mud volcano can be observed. The vent is 30 m in diameter and is consisted of mud breccia and scaly network clay that is thought to be generated by hydro-fracturing and the following water-rock interaction between mudstone and groundwater. Groundwater erupted from mud volcano is highly saline with electric conductivity of 15 mS/cm and high 18 O/16 O isotope ratio of 1.2 parmillage. Also, the vitrinite reflectance is 1.5 to 1.9 % that is not expected in the sedimentary rocks exposed near ground surface. As a result, it is assumed that these erupted materials were introduced from the deep underground about 4000 m deep. CSA-MT geophysical exploration was carried out to survey the underground structure and obtained the profile of electrical resistivity from the surface to 800 m in depth. It is found that the disk-shaped low resistivity zone less than 1 m due to the high salinity content is identified in underground 600 m deep, 200 m thick and 800 m in diameter under the mud volcanoes. Moreover, low resistivity zone is continuing to the ground surface along the rim of the basin structure similar to volcanic caldera where mud volcanoes are active. As a result, it is concluded the abnormal water pressure was generated 4000 m in depth by the dehydration by the smectite-illite transition. Saline water chamber was generated 600 m in depth. Then, pressurized water and gas were erupted and the caldera structure was formed. After that, the ground surface was subsided and the basin was formed. Mud and groundwater is erupting along the caldera wall now. The trouble section in the tunnel excavation corresponds to the caldera wall where pressurized saline water and gas was filled.