Berca Mud Volcanoes

The Berca Mud Volcanoes are a geological and botanical reservation located in the Berca commune in the Buzău County in Romania. Its most spectacular feature is the "mud volcanoes", small volcano-shaped structures typically a few meters high caused by the eruption of mud and volcanic gases.

The geological phenomenon

As the gasses erupt from 3000 meters-deep towards the surface, through the underground layers of clay and water, they push up underground salty water and mud, so that they overflow through the mouths of the volcanoes, while the gas emerges as bubbles. The mud dries off at the surface, creating a relatively solid conical structure, resembling a real volcano. The mud expelled by them is cold, as it comes from inside the Earth's continental crust layers, and not from the mantle.

The reservation is unique in Romania. Elsewhere in Europe, similar phenomena can be observed in Italy (northern Apennines and Sicily), Ukraine (in the Kerch Peninsula), as well as Azerbaijan.

Flora

The mud volcanoes create a strange lunar landscape, due to the absence of vegetation around the cones. Vegetation is scarce because the soil is very salty, an environmental condition in which few plants can survive. However, this kind of environment is good for some rare species of plants, such as "Nitraria schoberi" and "Obione verrucifera".

The phenomenon can be observed on two separate locations near the Berca commune, dubbed "the Little Mud Volcanoes" and "The Big Mud Volcanoes".

Gallery

ee also

* Tourism in Romania

External links

* [http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/nndc/struts/results?eq_1=15&t=101634&s=0&d=4%2C44 Environmental Hazards and Mud Volcanoes in Romania]
* [http://www.csvd.ro/panoblog/360-romania/lanscape-and-scenery/the-muddy-volcanoes-of-romania/ 360° panoramic images from the Muddy Volcanoes]
* [http://www.itinerar.ro/Harta/VlBz.htm Itinerary and map the Muddy Volcanoes]