| Abstract |
Santorini is one of the most original, beautiful and impressive volcanic island complexes on this planet. At the same time, it is one of the most violent and destructive volcanoes on Earth. Approximately two million years ago, the volcanic activity in the area produced molten rock for the first time. It has taken thousands of eruptions since then to build up the present shape of Santorini. In the last 400,000 years there have been more than 100 eruptions slowly adding more rock and making the island bigger. Some of these eruptions were so violent that they demolished a large part of the volcano. The last catastrophic eruption occurred 3600 years ago, during the Late Bronze Age. It extinguished every trace of life and civilization that flourished in the Aegean area. The tremendous eruption of 1600 BC is known as the Minoan Eruption. It ejected into the air between 30 km3 and 90 km3 of magma in the form of pumice and volcanic ash. This material buried the island, plants, animals, people, and its culture. The most recent eruptions at Santorini occurred in 1939, 1941 and 1950. This paper presents a brief description of the historical and recent volcanic activity at Santorini, the collapse of the original volcano and the formation of the present island complex, composed of the fragments that remained above the surface of the sea after the collapse. Several superficial evidences, like abnormal temperatures, a gas - leakage anomaly near one of the main island’s cape, and a good fault-controlled vertical permeability, are probably related to the presence of a local hydrothermal submarine reservoir. We introduce a preliminary coarse evaluation of the geothermal potential of the zone, which can be considered as an example of the energy contained in volcanic islands. |