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Mud volcanoes are well-known phenomena in many places on the Earth. They are distributed in various tectonic settings, usually related to neotectonic activity; sedimentary loading; hydrocarbon generation and the existence of a thick layer of fine-grained, plastic, buoyant sediments.
Romania hosts one of the most impressive ones in Europe, in the Berca-Arbanasi hydrocarbon-bearing structure (Paclele Mari and Paclele Mici, in the Eastern Carpathians Foreland). In Romania there are other much smaller, less vigorous mud volcanoes spread all over in the Transylvanian Basin, Moldavian Plateau, Western Plain etc.
The presence of mud volcanoes in the Transylvanian Basin is not unexpected. The Transylvanian Basin is known as the purest gaseous hydrocarbon bearing basin in Europe. The average thickness of the sediment sequences is 4-5 km, its actual architecture being partly defined by salt tectonics with diapir forms. As the mud volcanoes are very widespread in this area we proposed to study their distribution according to the lineaments identified with the help of remote sensing methods.
We analyzed the coincidence and relative position of the mud volcanoes regarding the lineaments. If the lineaments are related to the real tectonic elements than we consider that the good fitting of the mud volcanoes position with the lineaments is not a phenomenon by chance. We also found a region where the surface salt occurrence is linked to the mud volcano position, where the lineament interpretation explains the neotectonic evolution of a pull-apart sub-basin in the southern part of the Transylvanian Basin.
This new method of mud volcano study supported by remote sensing techniques (i.e. image processing, lineament analysis) we consider applicable in wider region to get better stated results.
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