Pakistan's earthquake island proves to be a mud-methane 'volcano' After a 7.7 magnitude earthquake hit a remote province of Pakistan Tuesday, a new island emerges in the Arabian Sea, but this isn't the first island created by an earthquake. THE mud island that emerged off the coast of Pakistan after a massive earthquake is sitting on a massive bubble of methane gas. Hundreds of people were killed in the tragic earthquake on Tuesday, but much of the world's attention has turned to the mysterious mud island that rose from the seabed. One report from a nearby resident describes how a gas plume on the island was set alight: I stepped out, and was flabbergasted. I could see this grey, dome-shaped body in the distance, like a giant whale swimming near the surface. Hundreds of people had gathered to watch it in disbelief," the resident told local journalist Bahram Baloch. There were dead fish on the surface. And on one side we could hear the hissing sound of the escaping gas. These satellite photos show a before and after view of the bay in which the mud island emerged after Pakistan's severe 7.7 earthquake earlier this week. A match was put to the fissures from where methane was rising. We put the fire out in the end, but it was quite a hassle. Not even the water could kill it, unless one poured buckets over it," the resident said. Muhammad Danish, a marine biologist from Pakistans National Institute of Oceanography, told PressTV a team of experts landed on the island yesterday and found methane gas. Our team found bubbles rising from the surface of the island which caught fire when a match was lit and we forbade our team to start any flame. It is methane gas," Danish said. Exactly how much methane is accumulated within the mud is unknown, he said, but the risk of explosion is very real. This small island of mud and rock created by the huge earthquake that hit southwest Pakistan has fascinated locals but experts - who found methane gas rising from it - say it is unlikely to last long. Picture: Behram BALOCH The island, some 270km north of Karachi, is the product of the distinctive geological features in the region struck the by 7.7 quake. The region had a significant buildup of sediments on top of the rock forming the oceanic tectonic plate. When the plate shifts during a quake, the sediments get pushed about. The sand and mud is full of the rotting remains of dead sea life that have gathered over several millennia. The decomposed materials have produced gases such as methane, which stay trapped at the bottom of the sea until shaken out. A magnitude 8.1 quake in 1945 triggered a landslide under the ocean that produced a 15m-high tsunami. Pakistani residents arrive by boat to an island that appeared some two kilometres off the coastline at Gwadar. Experts predict the new island is only a temporary apparition. The mass of mud is expected to slip back beneath the waves as the sediments and gasses settle. The 7.7-magnitude quake which formed this island on September 24, in Baluchistan's remote Awaran district, killing at least 271 people and affecting hundreds of thousands.