VolcanicDegassing

Flooding the Santorini Caldera

David Pyle November 8, 2016

View across the northern part of Santorini's flooded caldera

The flooded caldera of Santorini volcano holds many secrets, buried beneath the ash and pumice of its last great eruption. In the Late Bronze Age, about 3600 years ago, an explosive eruption several times larger that of Krakatoa, 1883, wreaked devastation across this thriving island. A great trading port, Akrotiri, was buried under metres of pumice; preserving for future generations a snapshot of ...[Read More]

Growth of the Kameni Islands Volcano, Santorini, Greece

David Pyle March 18, 2014

The Kameni islands, Greece

A new paper, published in the journal GeoResJ, reveals the intricate details of the volcanic Kameni islands that lie in the flooded caldera of Santorini, Greece. The Kameni islands started growing shortly after the explosive eruption that formed much of the present day caldera. For the past 3500 years or so these islands have grown in pulses, with each new eruption adding more material to the edif ...[Read More]

The Kameni islands, Santorini, Greece

David Pyle February 14, 2014

A glimpse of the spectacular Kameni or ‘burnt’ islands of Santorini, Greece from the air reveals in intricate detail the overlapping lava flows, explosion craters and fields of volcanic ash from which the islands have been built in successive eruptions over the past 2000 years, and more. Of course, what we can see from the air is just the literal ‘tip’ of the present-day vo ...[Read More]

Santorini: a volcano in remission?

David Pyle August 7, 2013

In January 2011, Santorini volcano in Greece began to show the first subtle signs of stirring after many decades of quiet – or at least many decades without detectable activity. This presented an exceptional opportunity to track the behaviour of a very well-studied volcano at the start of a phase of ‘unrest’. Although it may seem counter-intuitive, volcanologists don’t real ...[Read More]