On January 11, at approximately 5 pm, the Cascadoux Mud Volcano at Cascadoux Trace, Mayaro, began erupting.
Residents reported that hot mud was shooting into the air, as high as 15 feet. This ceased later that same night.
Spurts of mud along with gas continued to be released by the two new vents of the mud volcano.
Two of TT’s most prominent geologists, Curtis Archie and Xavier Moonan, made independent visits and investigations into the Cascadoux eruption.
Archie has also been visiting and documenting the site for several years. We have compiled their findings in this article.
Archie’s finding:
To the north of Mayaro, in an area best known for the cultivation of watermelons, there is a hill that rises approximately 90 feet above the southern edge of the Nariva Swamp.
Residents in the area were surprised that the Cascadoux mud volcano had reawakened. There is no recorded history of past eruptions. The activity was confined to a small area where liquid mud being emitted had built a cone about six feet high by 2008. Since then, the release of mud had diminished, and over time, the cone washed away to where we now see a few bumps and one small vent.
Field mapping by geologists of Dominion Oil in 1954 produced a map that had four active vents, which were trended northwest to southeast. George Higgins and John Saunders in 1974 published a brief description of this mud volcano. At that time, the area covered by old mudflows was 50 hectares, and only one mud vent was active.
The large area covered by old mudflows and the height of the hill strongly suggest past eruptions were much larger and more frequent. This low state of activity continued until January 11, when four new areas of mud expulsion appeared.
The lack of activity had lulled villagers into a false sense of security, and some built houses within 70 feet of the pre-2024 vent.
The largest expulsion of mud is near an old vent identified on the 1959 Kugler surface geology map. Mud volcanism in TT extends from Pedernales in Venezuela into the Atlantic off the east coast, and only occurs to the south of the Central Range.
[caption id="attachment_1071605" align="alignnone" width="874"] The Cascadoux mud volcano[/caption]
Features associated with mud volcanism range from small vents to large cones and mud lakes. Activity ranges from a few gas bubbles, water and liquid mud oozing from vents and large pools to explosive eruptions lasting less than five minutes.
Onshore Trinidad is world-famous for its easily accessible mud volcanoes: Higgins and Saunders identified and documented 26. Brami et al (2000), using 3D seismic surveys, revealed the deep waters off the east coast of Trinidad were dominated by large mud volcanoes and mud diapirs.
Why so many mud volcanoes?
Why does Trinidad have so many mud volcanoes? Firstly, southern Trinidad is dominated by thick, rapidly deposited and buried clays. Rapid burial resulted in water becoming trapped in the pore spaces of sediments.
Unable to escape, as these sediments are buried deeper and deep
