A volcano in southern Iran, believed to have been extinct for 710,000 years, has awakened.
New research published October 7 in the journal Geophysical research letters finds that an area of soil near the summit of Taftan Volcano rose 3.5 inches (9 centimeters) over 10 months between July 2023 and May 2024. The uplift has not yet receded, suggesting a buildup of gas pressure beneath the volcano’s surface.
The findings reveal the need for closer monitoring of the volcano, which has never been considered a risk to humans before, the study’s lead author said. Pablo Gonzalezvolcanologist at the Institute of Natural Products and Agrobiology, a research center of the Spanish National Research Council (IPNA-CSIC). Volcanoes are considered extinct if they did not erupt during the Holocon era, which began 11,700 years ago. Given his recent activity, González said, Taftan could be more accurately described as dormant.
“It needs to be released somehow in the future, either violently or more quietly,” González told Live Science. There is no reason to fear an imminent eruption, he said, but the volcano should be monitored more closely.
Taftan Volcano is a 3,940 meter high stratovolcano in southeastern Iran, located in the middle of a group of mountains and volcanoes formed by the subduction of the volcano. Arabian oceanic crust beneath the Eurasian continent. Today, the volcano is home to an active hydrothermal system and smelly, sulfur-emitting vents called fumaroles, but it is not known to have erupted in human history.
When Mohammadossein Mohammadniaa doctoral student working under González at IPNA-CSIC, first looked at satellite imagery of the volcano in 2020, seeing no evidence that it was doing much. But then, in 2023, people started reporting the volcano’s gaseous emissions on social media. The emissions could be felt from the town of Khash, about 50 kilometers away.
Mohammadnia re-examined satellite images from the European Space Agency’s Sentinel-1 mission, which provide 24-hour images of the Earth’s surface. Taftan is remote and does not have a GPS monitoring system like those found on volcanoes like Mount St. Helena; the area is also dangerous due to the activity of insurgent groups and border conflicts between Iran and Pakistan. Satellite imagery revealed a slight rise in the ground near the summit, indicating increased pressure below.
Mohammadnia calculated that the driving force behind this uprising lies between 1,608 and 2,067 feet (490 to 630 m) below the surface. It’s impossible to know exactly what’s happening, but researchers have ruled out external factors such as nearby earthquakes or precipitation, Mohammadnia told Live Science. The volcano’s magma reservoir is more than 3.5 km deep, much deeper than what causes the uplift.
Instead, either the uplift is caused by a change in the hydrothermal plumbing beneath the volcano that leads to the buildup of gases, or a small amount of magma may have moved beneath the volcano, allowing gases to bubble up into the rocks above, increasing the pressure in the pores and fractures of the rocks and causing a slight uplift of the ground.
According to González, the next step in the research will be to collaborate with scientists who carry out gas monitoring at volcanoes.
“This study is not intended to sow panic among the population,” he said. “This is a wake-up call for authorities in the Iranian region to designate resources to look into this issue.”
