However, volcanic clay is widely used in construction as a good expanded clay raw material, and clay bricks are also made. Volcanic waters are rich in iodine, boron, bromine, and mud is rich in chemical elements and is widely used in the treatment of a number of diseases (eg, central nervous system, skin diseases, radiculitis, urology, gynecology, cosmetology, etc.). Finally, volcanic activity is paragenetically related to earthquakes.

The territory of Azerbaijan is a unique and classic area where mud volcanism develops on our planet. All types of more than 350 mud volcanoes (active, extinct, buried, oil-producing, submarine, island volcanoes) are found in the land part of eastern Azerbaijan and in the adjacent Caspian Sea. There is no place in the world similar to the territory of Azerbaijan in terms of the number, diversity and active activity of these natural monuments. Our country is considered the homeland of mud volcanoes. More than 100 volcanoes located in the Absheron Peninsula, Shamakhi-Gobustan, south-eastern Shirvan regions and the Baku archipelago are in Gobustan. 40 volcanoes bring a lot of oil to the surface. There are 8 islands of mud volcano origin in the Baku archipelago.

Our questions about these natural monuments were answered by the head of the "Mud Volcanism" department of the Institute of Geology of ANAS, Doctor of Geological and Mineralogical Sciences, Professor, Honored Scientist Adil Aliyev:

- Mud volcanoes have been studied at the Institute of Geology of ANAS for more than 40 years. In the 1970s, we also studied the mud volcanoes of Turkmenistan, Georgia, the Kerch and Taman peninsulas, and the islands of Kuban and Sakhalin. Over the past 15 years, Azerbaijan's mud volcanoes have been studied together with leading oil companies from the United Kingdom, Norway and the United States (BP, Statoil, AMOC, Exxon), Western universities (Italy, etc.), as well as scientists and experts from Russia, Ukraine and Germany.

As a result of the research, a number of important scientific results have been obtained. For example, the method of geochemical prospecting of oil and gas deposits located deep in volcanic areas and the method of mapping extinct submarine mud volcanoes have been developed and applied in the Caspian Sea. Morphogenetic classification of mud volcanoes was developed, their relationship with regional faults, regularities of time and space distribution were determined