Cyclic activity of the LUSI mud volcano (East Java, Indonesia)

Mud volcanoes often release fluids in a pulsating fashion, with periodic timescales ranging from minutes to days. These oscillations, common in natural systems of multi-phase fluid flow, are thought to result from some combination of complex feedback mechanisms between conduit and source geometry, and such factors as: fluid compressibility, viscosity and density, changes in lithostatic stresses, reservoir pressure, or vent conditions. The LUSI mud volcano is in a densely populated district of the Sidoarjo regency (East Java, Indonesia), and has been erupting since May 2006. Crisis management workers and local residents have reported observations of pulsating eruptive cycles lasting a few hours during the first two years of the eruption, and possibly beyond. Since 2010, however, the activity has shifted to individual transient eruptions recurring at intervals of a few minutes. In the summer of 2011, we documented this cyclic behavior at LUSI using a combination of high-resolution time-lapse photography, webcam, and thermal infrared imagery. The imagery reveals that hot mud and gases were released from three individual sources within the 150 m wide vent pond. The mud, consisting of at least 70% water, is erupted at temperatures close to boiling. Released gases consist principally of water vapor, carbon dioxide and methane. Eruptions ejected mud some 20 m above the vent in an unsteady fountain and formed 50 m-high plumes of hot gas. Pulses, on average 50 s in duration, were characterized by sharp onsets and exponential decays in intensity. We observed explosion periods ranging from 1 to 3 minutes during this campaign, the median period was 100 s, and pulses were separated by periods of apparent quiescence. Each vent was characterized by a different dominant period, indicating that parameters controlling activity vary among the vents. Potential conceptual eruptive models are gas accumulation and release, slug flow, or oscillations in pressure at depth to account for the eruption cyclicity. Our field measurements of periodicity, column height and, in time, gas flux, coupled with estimates of mud viscosity and conduit geometry, are thus crucial parameters that can be used to test the various models and ultimately constrain conditions in the deeper parts of the LUSI system.