‘Ghost island’ appears in satellite images — and then mysteriously vanishes
It was a different kind of island getaway.
Scientists were intrigued after NASA satellites spotted a mysterious “ghost island” that formed and then disappeared just as quickly.
The phantom landmass had emerged in the Caspian Sea following the 2023 eruption of the Kumani Bank mud volcano, which is located some 15 miles off the East coast of Azerbaijan, SWNS reported.
NASA satellites spotted a mysterious “ghost island” that formed and then disappeared “like an apparition.” Landsat/NASA EO / SWNS
Mud volcanos are formed when subsurface pressure amasses and forces a mix of fluids, gases and sediments to the surface, according to NASA’s Earth Observatory.
The resultant promontory’s timelapse-evoking rise and fall was subsequently recorded over several years by remote sensing instruments aboard the Landsat 8 and 9 satellites.
At the beginning of November 2022, the fleeting island remained under the sea, per the images.
It remained there until breaking the surface on February 14, 2023, leaving a trail of sedimentary plume in its wake.
The ghost island was located about 15 miles off of Azerbaijan. Landsat/NASA EO / SWNS
The island appeared last February and a sedimentary plume could be seen drifting away from it. Landsat/NASA EO / SWNS
NASA satellite imaging suggested that the island — which measured around 1,300 feet across — had emerged between January 30 and February 4.
Like most island visits, this one was all too brief.
By the end of 2024, the spectral spit of land had almost entirely eroded away, “retreating from view like an apparition,” scientists wrote.
The Kumani Bank mud volcano has produced similar transient islands since its first recorded eruption in 1861, which created a landmass that measured just 285 feet across and 11.5 feet above the water.
It eroded entirely by 1862.
Azerbaijan has an unusually high concentration of mud volcanoes with more than 300 counted both on land and offshore in the Caspian Sea
The country’s mud volcanoes are connected to the South Caspian Basin’s sprawling hydrocarbon system, which is known to spout flammable gases like methane along with signature muddy sludge.
Mud volcanoes are “weird and wonderful features that remain largely understudied and little understood,” said geologist Mark Tingay in a seminar for the Geological Society of Australia.
