After 700,000 years of silence, InSAR unveils that Iran’s Taftan volcano shows signs of awakening

The Taftan Volcano in southeastern Iran, long thought to be extinct, is showing signs of renewed activity after approximately 700,000 years of dormancy. Recent satellite data analyzed between July 2023 and May 2024 revealed a ground uplift of around 9 centimeters, indicating an increase in pressure beneath the summit. This gradual rise has not receded, suggesting a sustained buildup of gas or fluid within the volcano’s subsurface system.

Located near the border with Pakistan, Taftan is a 3,940-meter stratovolcano formed by the subduction of the Arabian Plate beneath the Eurasian Plate. Although no eruptions have occurred in recorded history, fumarolic emissions and sulfur vents have been active in recent years, with residents from the nearby city of Khash reporting strong sulfuric odors in 2023. The findings, published in Geophysical Research Letters, confirm that Taftan is not extinct but rather dormant and potentially active.

Using data from the European Space Agency’s Sentinel-1 mission, researchers employed Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) to detect subtle surface movements with high precision. The uplift’s source was estimated to lie between 490 and 630 meters below the surface, at a shallow depth relative to the deeper magma reservoir situated roughly 3.5 kilometers down.