Comprehensive global inventory of submarine mud volcanoes
Simone Napoli, Daniele Spatola, Daniele Casalbore, Luigi Lombardo, Hakan Tanyaş, Francesco Latino Chiocci
Abstract
Systematic morphometric studies of submarine potential geohazard elements such as mud volcanism are still limited in the scientific literature. To fill this gap and contribute to the global geohazard databases, we present a comprehensive inventory of submarine mud volcanoes (MVs) considering their spatial location and characteristics. The "Global inventory of submarine mud volcanoes" database here presented includes a large dataset, providing an overview of the morphometric analyses we performed as well as the considerations that arose from them. These cover basic marine geological and applied geohazard aspects. We explored frequency-area distribution patterns within this dataset, as typical of other geoscientific branches. This effort is a first step towards a shared and open knowledge of MVs, through which the marine geology community would further investigate the genesis of such phenomena and contribute to society in making informed decisions on related submarine geohazards.