The vast expanses of the Kerch Hills are replete with original landforms associated with volcanic activity. Some of the active mud hills are curious natural phenomena, as if imitating real volcanoes in miniature. Spewing cold mud squeezed out from the depths of the earth's crust under the pressure of combustible natural gases, they illustrate the oil and gas potential of the Kerch Peninsula.
Mud hills and fields, of which there are more than 50, are usually small, varied in shape and rise above the surrounding area to a height of 2-3 to 50 meters. Due to periodic outpourings of mud, spreading far to the sides from the openings of the craters, the area adjacent to the hill cones has a dull and lifeless appearance. Only in the craters, as if breathing, liquid mud slowly pulsates under the pressure of gases. In the composition of the hill mud - silica, alumina, red iron ore, calcium and magnesium ions. These muds are used for the production of expanded clay and for medicinal purposes. The most interesting mud hills of the Kerch Peninsula must be preserved inviolable as examples of the modern development of the relief, valuable scientific and educational objects. Findings of many rare minerals are associated with mud hills, as well as with iron ore deposits of the Kerch Peninsula. Of the more than two hundred mineral species known in the Crimea, about a dozen were first found here, on the Crimean land. Among them are alpha-, beta-, gammakerchenites, reedburunites, mithridatites, bosphorites...
"JAU-TEPE" - a mud volcano. Monument of nature of national importance (1975). The largest mud volcano on the Kerch Peninsula. The height of the hill above sea level is 116 meters. Rising 60 meters above the surrounding area, it is clearly visible from afar. One of the pioneers of the Crimea, P.S. Pallas, referring to eyewitnesses, indicates that Dzhau-Tepe arose during a large eruption in the 18th century. The total volume of mud ejected by this volcano is estimated at 55 million cubic meters.