In 2025, the international scientific publisher “Springer” (Switzerland) published a monograph by Ukrainian scientists in English titled “Anomalous Gas Volcanism in the Black Sea” («Anomalous Gas Volcanism in the Black Sea»). The authors of the work are – the chief researcher of the S.I. Subbotin Institute of Geophysics of the NAS of Ukraine, corresponding member of the NAS of Ukraine Volodymyr Kobolev, Ukrainian scientist-geologist, academician of the NAS of Ukraine Yevhen Shnyukov (1930–2022), and professor of Odessa National I.I. Mechnikov University, Doctor of Geological and Mineralogical Sciences Valentyna Yanko.
This book provides a detailed characterization of the unprecedented intensity of gas discharge from the seabed in the Black Sea in the form of jet emissions (seeps, flares) and burst gas emissions in mud volcanoes (fountains). The authors focused primarily on the anomalous methane emissions caused by the Yalta earthquakes of 1927, which were accompanied by amazing and mysterious fiery phenomena. Analysis of available geological and geophysical materials indicates that these phenomena were caused by massive methane emissions, which in turn resulted from a powerful mantle gas-fluid flow into the decompressed zones of the crystalline basement along tectonic faults of various scales within the Odesa-Sinop and Circum-Black Sea fault zones. The earthquakes served as a trigger for the activation of tectonic faults in the bottom sedimentary horizons for the migration of focused deep gas-fluid flows. The authors of the monograph analyzed the deep structure of the focal zones and the nature of the seismic process and assessed the nature of the manifestations of the mentioned fiery phenomena. They emphasized the enormous volumes of gas emissions: we are talking about millions of cubic meters of methane, which are proposed to be considered as peculiar gas plumes, the nature of which is associated with zones of deep faults in the upper mantle.
To explain them, the authors applied a conceptual model according to which the main source of energy for the Earth's internal processes is considered to be an induced chain of hydrogen and helium degassing reactions – as the most common and important energy reservoirs and carriers. The proposed model provides a key to explaining the synthesis of inorganic hydrocarbons (mainly methane), which are formed simultaneously with intrusive and effusive processes through mutual reactions of elementary products of the decay of hydrogen and helium compounds. The release of primary accretion energy conserved in hydrogen and helium compounds through a series of exothermic reactions and phase transformations is the fastest and most efficient among all energy transfer processes.
Using geological and geophysical materials obtained in recent years, the authors significantly refined the structural-tectonic structure and localization of gas-mud activity in the Black Sea area. All these materials – along with the analysis of existing data on the seismicity of the Crimean region – open up the possibility of explaining the fiery phenomena observed during the Yalta earthquakes of 1927 and facilitate the interpretation and understanding of their nature.
According to information from the S.I. Subbotin Institute of Geophysics of the NAS of Ukraine