Monitoring the Dynamic Properties of an active Mud Volcano in the West Nile Delta

Large numbers of submarine mud volcanoes have been discovered in many different continental margin settings often associated with hydrocarbon provinces. They are characterized by fluid formation and fluidization processes occuring at depths of several kilometers below the seafloor which drive a complex system of interacting geochemical, geological and microbial processes. As mud volcanoes are natural leakages of oil and gas reservoirs, near-surface phenomena can be used for monitoring of processes at great depth. North Alex Mud Volcano (NAMV) in the West Nile Delta, apparently rooted at depths of more than 5 kilometers is the focus of an industry-funded research project using existing and newly developed observatory technologies to better understand and quantify the internal dynamics and its long-term variability in relation to underlying gas reservoirs. As it is known that the activity of mud volcanoes varies significantly over periods of months and weeks, the assessment of the activity of NAMV focuses on proxies of fluid and gas emanations. Since the initiation of the project in 2007 NAMV has arguably become one of the best-instrumented mud volcanoes worldwide with a network of observatories collecting permanent long-term records of chemical fluxes, seismicity, temperature, ground deformation, and methane concentration. We will report on the first results of CAT meter deployments to determine chemical fluxes and relate them to long-term records of temperature, deformation as evident from tiltmeter deployments, and seismicity from a local OBS network.