More than 3,600 years ago, around the year 1600 BCE, the volcanic island of Thera (today, known as Santorini) in the Aegean Sea exploded. As one of the largest volcanic eruptions in history, this powerful blast blew the center out of the island, sending rock high into the sky, creating a tsunami that wiped out entire communities on the nearby island of Crete, and impacting the weather as far away as China! At the time, ancient civilizations hardly knew what to make of this world-shattering event.
Fast-forward to today, where we know that the Christiana, Santorini and Kolumbo volcanic group in the Aegean Sea (collectively known as the Hellenic Volcanic Arc) is particularly hazardous because of what’s happening far beneath the sea floor. To better understand the history of volcanic eruptions in this region, the Hellenic Arc Volcanic Field Expedition team will travel aboard the scientific drilling vessel JOIDES Resolution into the flooded caldera of Santorini (and other sites) to collect rock and sediment samples containing three million years of clues!
Are you ready to climb aboard the JOIDES Resolution and see what it’s like to drill directly into an underwater volcano? What clues will the expedition team discover that may help protect the millions of people who live within the shadow of a major volcano today? Let’s join the expedition and find out!
