The thought of standing directly above thousands of kilometers of rock and magma in motion is quite unsettling. But, the anxiety quickly fades because we realize there is nothing to fear in Iowa when it comes to volcanos. 1630 B.C. Santorini, Greece, however, is a completely different story. Not only was the Santorini eruption one of the biggest in Earth’s history, but it quite literally changed the face of the earth and created the infamous myth of Atlantis. Santorini is volcanic small island group located 200 km southeast of Greece in the southern Aegean Sea composed of five islands (Thira/Thera, Therasia, Aspronisi, Nea Kameni, and Palea Kameni). It lies on the convergent boundary of the African plate and the Eurasian plate (Aegean subplate),
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The initial explosion decimated the Santorini islands, and the collapse of the caldera (along with the explosion of the island) created a massive tsunami, which reached the Eastern Mediterranean shorelines and easily overtook many surrounding islands and coastlines, including Crete. The estimated wave height was 35 to 150 meters, and it has been deduced that 60 cubic km of materials were spewed from the volcano up to 35 km in the stratosphere, and covered the Middle East (Beverly N. Goodman-Tchernov, 2009). Santorini was torn apart with no survivors, who ran to the boats, while the towering waves decimated other lands, where people would run for high ground. Because of the time frame of this particular catastrophe, there were hardly any mitigation measures or ways of predicting the eruption. It is possible that the volcano had given warnings months in advance, such as smoke, rumbling, or small-scale eruptions. Because there are no first-hand accounts for what happened, human nature is the best bet; people ran for cover. The Minoans were not adequately prepared because they most likely didn’t have a warning. One sure-fire way to reduce deaths would have been to not live on the Santorini islands, and another would be to have lived on higher elevations in Crete and other surrounding coasts. In order to prevent future deaths and damages, it would be wise to slow/stop building on the Santorini islands, as it is a big tourist destination and the volcano has become active again (Nature, 2012). Another would be to fortify the coastlines to reduce tsunami flooding, and to disseminate information to citizens and tourists to educate them on what to do during an eruption/tsunami. We could also predict when the next big eruption could be by studying a timeline of previous eruptions and their VEI’s, looking at the fault shift
The initial explosion decimated the Santorini islands, and the collapse of the caldera (along with the explosion of the island) created a massive tsunami, which reached the Eastern Mediterranean shorelines and easily overtook many surrounding islands and coastlines, including Crete. The estimated wave height was 35 to 150 meters, and it has been deduced that 60 cubic km of materials were spewed from the volcano up to 35 km in the stratosphere, and covered the Middle East (Beverly N. Goodman-Tchernov, 2009). Santorini was torn apart with no survivors, who ran to the boats, while the towering waves decimated other lands, where people would run for high ground. Because of the time frame of this particular catastrophe, there were hardly any mitigation measures or ways of predicting the eruption. It is possible that the volcano had given warnings months in advance, such as smoke, rumbling, or small-scale eruptions. Because there are no first-hand accounts for what happened, human nature is the best bet; people ran for cover. The Minoans were not adequately prepared because they most likely didn’t have a warning. One sure-fire way to reduce deaths would have been to not live on the Santorini islands, and another would be to have lived on higher elevations in Crete and other surrounding coasts. In order to prevent future deaths and damages, it would be wise to slow/stop building on the Santorini islands, as it is a big tourist destination and the volcano has become active again (Nature, 2012). Another would be to fortify the coastlines to reduce tsunami flooding, and to disseminate information to citizens and tourists to educate them on what to do during an eruption/tsunami. We could also predict when the next big eruption could be by studying a timeline of previous eruptions and their VEI’s, looking at the fault shift