Scientists have found evidence of a colossal volcanic eruption in the Mediterranean near the Greek island of Santorini. The eruption happened around 520,000 years ago and was 15 times larger than the 2022 Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai eruption. According to Tim Druitt, a volcanology professor at the University of Clermont Auvergne in France, this newly discovered blast was even more cataclysmic than previously known. Santorini emerged from the sea approximately 400,000 years ago and its present-day archipelago formed during the Late Bronze Age due to a massive eruption. The magma chamber beneath the Kameni islands continues to fuel the volcano today.
The team drilled marine sediments around Santorini in late 2022 and early 2023 and extracted sediment cores from up to 3,000 feet below the seafloor at 12 drilling sites. They discovered the remnants of a massive eruption that was “bigger than anything else Santorini’s produced and probably one of the two biggest eruptions that the whole Hellenic volcanic arc has ever had,” Druiit said.
The eruption ejected at least 21.6 cubic miles of volcanic rock and ash, significantly larger than the 1.4 cubic miles produced by the Tonga eruption. Druitt emphasized that the finding is significant as it sheds light on the potential of the Hellenic volcanic arc to produce massive underwater eruptions. Despite this colossal eruption, Santorini is not expected to see an event of this scale for several hundred thousand years.
