Mud volcano erupts in the Tabin Wildlife Park

A mud volcano erupted at Tabin Wildlife Park, Lahad Datu, causing earthquake concerns among netizens.

The Tabin Wildlife Park’s Lipad Mud Volcano is located right at the western boundary of the nature reserve.

The volcano, which comprises mini mud volcanic craters, is located in an area approximately the size of a football field.

There are times when some lay dormant and only a few are bubbling. Currently the mud volcanoes are active.

However, mud volcanoes aren’t actual volcanoes in the same sense as igneous volcanoes. Most volcanoes are driven by molten rock from below, called magma.

Instead, mud volcanoes are driven by hot water and natural gas. They tend to occur where layers of water-saturated clay rocks in the earth’s interior are under pressure from the above layers. 

Pressure from nearby gas can drive this mud upward from deep within the earth toward the surface. 

The force of the gas can cause rocks and mud to shoot outward in an eruption, along with methane and carbon dioxide.

Most mud volcanoes are small, just a few inches to several feet (meters or so) high. 

But some larger mud volcanoes can rise over 300 feet (100 meters) above the surface. 

Mud volcanoes found in water may never produce enough material to rise above the water level, while others create islands around volcanic activity. 

Though mud volcanoes sometimes erupt with powerful results, they are, for the most part, harmless. Gases bubble passively from the tiny “craters” at their summit, and upwelling mud slowly oozes out to form small flows.

However, Sabah geologist Professor Dr Felix Tongkul said the mud volcano eruption phenomenon was normal when the mud pressure in the earth rose and had to be released.

“This situation repeats itself when pressure accumulates over time.

“Mud volcanoes like this (more active) sometimes occur during earthquakes,” he said when contacted by Berita Harian, adding that mud volcanoes were not something new in Sabah.

Apart from Tabin, he said such incidents can be seen in other districts, with one of the popular ones being at Taman Pulau Tiga, Kuala Penyu.

Sabah’s Pulau Tiga is said to emerge from the eruption of a mud volcano in 1897 following an earthquake in Mindanao, southern Philippines.