Movement of a mud mixture through a mud volcano channel

The movement of a mud mixture through a vertical volcanic channel is studie d. This work is an extended version of the preliminary paper by Karakin and Karakin [2000]. The mud mixture is described by a porous saturated medium with a viscous skeleton, through which a fluid (water, oil, or gas) moves. The dynamics of this medium is referred to as compaction, or viscous consol idation. As the mud mixture moves through a vertical cylindrical channel, f riction against the channel walls produces a shear flow resembling the Pois euille flow of an incompressible liquid in a pipe. Moreover, 1-D compaction takes place in the channel. Ultimately, the problem reduces to a 1-D compa ction model, which is studied by numerical methods. The analysis of the sol utions has led to some conclusions on the mud mixture movement. The study o f the mud volcano dynamics provides important constraints on the fluid migr ation pattern during the formation of oil and gas deposits.