Where the mud comes from

In case you haven't heard of Java's mud volcano, let me catch you up.  In May of 2006, hot mud suddenly started bubbling up on the island of Java.  A lot of mud.  You can read about the statistics in the article I'm noting here, but the interesting (and difficult to deal with) aspect of this mud volcano is that the voluminous ejection of mud has continued since then.

So the question facing the scientific community has been -- where is all this mud coming from?  Well, the answer is, the plumbing of some nearby volcanoes.  The heat below the volcanoes, likely combined with hot water, steam, and corrosive gases, keeps making mud, which flows up at the vent (now called Lusi by the locals).  The article describes how they figured it out.

Scientists determine source of world's largest mud eruption

"The researchers discovered that the scorching magma from the Arjuno-Welirang volcano has essentially been “baking” the organic-rich sediments underneath Lusi. This process builds pressure by generating gas that becomes trapped below the surface. In Lusi’s case, the pressure grew until an earthquake triggered it to erupt."

If you want to see where Lusi is, click here.   You can't miss it.