'Ghost Island' Appears After Underwater Eruption, Then Disappears in Caspian Sea – Earth from Space

In January 2023, a temporary land mass emerged over an underwater mud volcano off the coast of Azerbaijan. By the end of 2024, it had almost completely disappeared. (Photo: NASA/USGS/Landsat/Wanmei Liang)

A stunning sequence of satellite images illustrates the brief history of a “ghost island” that appeared and quickly disappeared in the Caspian Sea after an underwater mud volcano exploded.

This fleeting island appeared in late January 2023 above Kumani Bank, an underwater volcano located about 24 kilometers off the east coast of Azerbaijan. At the time of its full formation, on February 4, the island was about 400 meters in diameter, according to NASA's Earth Observatory.

However, the island proved unstable, and by the time the last photograph was taken in December 2024, it had “virtually disappeared, vanishing into thin air like a ghost,” Earth Observatory said. At this point, the island is likely gone entirely.