Okay, so imagine thinking something’s been dead for over 700,000 years—completely gone, no signs of life, just a relic of the planet’s fiery past—and then one day it starts… swelling. Breathing. Rumbling. That’s exactly what’s happening right now in southeastern Iran, where a volcano long believed extinct is starting to stir.
Taftan, a towering stratovolcano in Iran’s Sistan and Baluchestan province, just clocked a 3.5-inch summit uplift over ten months between 2023 and 2024. And that swelling? It hasn’t gone away.
Scientists are watching closely, because something is definitely happening beneath the surface—whether it’s hot gases and fluids building pressure or magma creeping three miles beneath the summit and pushing the whole system up like a balloon.
Let’s be clear: this thing was classified as extinct. Not dormant. Not resting. Extinct. Meaning no eruptions for at least 11,700 years. But thanks to this new activity—visible smoke and ash emissions in 2024, gas releases, deformation of the mountain itself—volcanologists are making it official: Taftan is back on the radar.
Senior study author Pablo González told Live Science that the volcano should now be considered dormant, not extinct. And while there’s no need to panic (yet), this is definitely the time to pay attention. The swelling summit, the sulfur dioxide averaging 20 tons per day, the sharp gas spikes in May—all of it adds up to a system that’s under pressure.
And here’s where it gets even more interesting: the deformation wasn’t triggered by rainfall, earthquakes, or surface activity. It’s all internal.
The pressure is coming from deep inside the mountain. Using satellite tech, scientists traced the source of this change to just 1,500 to 2,000 feet below the summit—shallow in volcanic terms, and very much a red flag.
So what’s at stake? Well, a lot. The city of Khash is only 81 miles away. Zahedan, with over half a million residents, is about 100 miles out. And across the border in Pakistan, the town of Taftan sits just 62 miles from the volcano.
If this mountain blows—whether tomorrow or decades from now—it won’t be subtle. We’re talking ash clouds, toxic gases, lava flows, maybe even pyroclastic surges. Airports could close. Farmland could be ruined. Air and water could be contaminated.
The last thing scientists want is hysteria, but they do want action. This isn’t about creating panic—it’s about getting ahead of the problem. Taftan is waking up, and the world needs to be ready.
