Santorini's volcano

   In his famous book “20.000 leagues under the sea” Jules Verne narrates how the submarine Nautilus reached Santorini’s volcano and Captain Nemo and his crew were astonished to experience the spectacular 1866 eruption of Georgios volcano on Nea Kameni. Today, you have the opportunity to walk over its black lava and witness themselves the weak emissions of hot steam in the crater that remind us that Georgios is still alive. You could also explore the inner part of the volcanic complex pretty much the same whay Captain Nemo and his crew did admiring the multicoloured inner walls of the gigantic volcanic caldron.

   The island of Santorini, morphologically is the result of a volcanic activity that starts many thousands of years ago. The island sits on the Aegean Volcanic Arc, an arc 500 kilometres long and 30-40 kilometres wide. The arc traverses the central Aegean, starting from mainland Greece and it ends on the coasts of Turkey. According to scientists the oldest lava deposits have an age of three million years. Nonetheless, the major volcanic activity that is responsible for the contemporary shape of Santorini dates 200,000 years. According to scientists the initial parts of the volcanic caldera were   created 100,000 years ago while the major eruption of 1600 BC gave the final touch of the caldera. At this time the Strongyle (the round island) came to an end and the croissant shape became reality.

Santorini's volcano eruption of 1600 BC

  The first signs of this massive eruption that had a devastating effect throughout the South Aegean started few months before the eruption. These signs were small earthquakes, emissions of gases etc. At its climax the eruption was very violent and impressive. Vast quantities of solids and gaseous matter were massively ejected from the volcanic crater. The massive ejection of all this matter led to the collapse of the earth's crust creating the famous volcanic caldera of Santorini and the islands of Thera, Therasia and Aspronisi are what remained from the previous shape of the island. Tidal waves reached and destroyed everything on the north coast of Crete while volcanic ash and pumice stone were deposited on all the nearby islands, Crete and Rhodes.