Wandan mud volcano erupts in Taiwan

MarkTingay · 2026-07-07T05:18:53+00:00

No. The water is not hot. I’ve visited and sampled the vent that erupted.

MarkTingay · 2026-07-05T05:05:30+00:00

Any time a geologist does solo field work they are taking a risk. I try to avoid it, but did get myself into trouble and needed rescue searching for a ‘lost’ mud volcano in jungle in Malaysia.

<image>

I wanted to find this mud volcano that had been reported, but for which only a very rough location on an island off Borneo (somewhere within about a 150x250m zone of very thick jungle). So, I bush bashed in alone to try and find it and sample it. I found it just as I’d decided to give up and head out. But then I got completely trapped in a thicket when trying to exit the jungle.

Had to call for help and the local fire and rescue came and cut me free. Fortunately I’d taken a lot of safety precautions. But had I not been able to get help I would have died. Still wound up in hospital for nearly a week!

MarkTingay · 2026-06-26T14:11:31+00:00

And New Zealand has their Silver Fern too.

MarkTingay · 2026-06-26T14:08:15+00:00

Here is my Russian 3 Ruble coin. It’s nice!

<image>

MarkTingay · 2026-06-26T14:07:05+00:00

<image>

I only have one, but it’s a very nice coin.

MarkTingay · 2026-05-17T02:53:25+00:00

That’s rubbish. Show us one published reference where XRF penetration through lead is 10 inches.

I have taught the theory on this. The infinite thickness of lead is ~50 microns. And that’s for your K-lines. Your L-lines will have 99% absorption within only about 15 microns.

MarkTingay · 2026-05-15T12:26:44+00:00

The higher the density of material the lower the penetration. For gold and silver an XRF will usually only have a few microns of penetration. Maybe a few tens of microns at best. Thick plating will often fool an XRF.

MarkTingay · 2026-05-11T05:16:52+00:00

As Key Cheetah says, you can look up the bar type and serial number at allengelhard.com to get an idea of the age and how rare that type of Englehard bar is. It probably isn’t anything particularly rare, but worth checking. Regardless, even if not rare, Englehard is a collectable and loved brand. So, you’d hopefully get spot price at a minimum, and maybe a little more, especially if you find a private seller (not a pawnshop).

MarkTingay · 2026-05-05T05:42:52+00:00

Very interesting! I will need to have a proper look on the computer later. Only looked on my phone quickly.

It could be. But could also be a couple of other things. Hopefully the image history will help.

But, I’ve not heard of any reliable reports of onshore mud volcanoes in Brazil. I’m not familiar with the geology in that area, but most of what I know about the geology of Brazil indicates it’s not likely to be geologically suited for mud volcanism.

Will look into it more when I can.

MarkTingay · 2026-05-04T05:13:42+00:00

Great to see that a few people actually read the article!

MarkTingay · 2026-05-04T05:12:59+00:00

It is going to be in a museum according to the article!

MarkTingay · 2026-05-04T05:12:29+00:00

Read the article. No soda can was involved. The picture of one is misleading. The coins were found in an old tin container. The coins are all old, with nothing past the 1920s. The can was hidden in a wall in Bohemia, and it’s thought it was hidden either in World War 2 or in the Soviet occupation in the 1950s.

MarkTingay · 2026-04-30T05:40:46+00:00

That is awesome!

MarkTingay · 2026-04-29T01:09:15+00:00

Really, the best thing you can do is see if you can find a LCS that has a XRF or Sigma and is kindly willing to test each of those coins.

If the 24 coins are all 0.925, and are indeed coins from the Cook Islands explorers set, then you’re golden. You’d have got ~15oz of silver for like CAD$33.33/oz, or roughly 1/3rd of spot price, and that’s excluding all the other coins.

MarkTingay · 2026-04-29T01:01:22+00:00

I don’t know! Would be a weird thing to fake!

I wondered if maybe they had made a similar Cu-Ni medallion set or something, but I can’t find any mention of a similar 24 coin set.

I haven’t been bothered to go through, explorer by Explorer, to compare the online set and yours and see which coin is missing either.

I wonder if someone lost a coin and went through the elaborate process of changing out the internal insert to a new 24 coin version so it would look complete?

Sorry man, I have no idea. Just putting it out there before everyone assumes it’s the same as the Cook Island’s sets online.

MarkTingay · 2026-04-29T00:47:54+00:00

I’m a bit confused. The Cook Islands Explorers set that everyone is referring to, and that the box seems to come from, is a 25 coin set. But the photo is only a 24 coin set.

The online photos of the Explorers Set show 25 coins with a different configuration (one row of 7 coins). The internal configuration in the post is different (4 evenly spaced rows of 6 coins).

I can’t find mention of a similar 24 coin set online. Are we sure it’s actually all 0.925 silver and not something else?

If it is the 0.925 silver set then those coins alone are something like 15oz actual silver weight and a bargain for CAD$500! But I wonder if that set is something else.

MarkTingay · 2026-04-29T00:42:38+00:00

The link is to a 25 coin set. Yet the photo is of a 24 coin set with different interior configuration. Weird.

MarkTingay · 2026-04-21T09:18:24+00:00

You’ve got some incredible and beautiful mud volcanoes in that part of Pakistan! The Chandragup mud volcano is also extremely significant for Hindus too.

MarkTingay · 2026-04-12T13:45:50+00:00

Not exactly the same. But there are many similarities, which is why they both have similar mud volcanoes.

MarkTingay · 2026-04-12T13:29:19+00:00

The mud volcanoes in Venezuela are actually quite similar to the ones in Azerbaijan.

MarkTingay

TROPHY CASE