Monday, June 26, 2006
Day Six: Santorini
Santorini was the real gem of all the locations we visited during this cruise.
The island was the site of one of the largest volcanic eruptions of the last several thousand years when it erupted cataclysmically about 3,500 years ago, in the Thera Eruption which nearly caused the extinction of early civilisation by generating a nuclear winter effect in the earth's atmosphere. The eruption left a large caldera (crater ring) surrounded by volcanic ash deposits hundreds of feet deep, generated tsunami which legend tells it washed over the top of the caldera cliffs (300 metres high) and its effects may have indirectly led to the collapse of the Minoan civilization on the island of Crete, 110 km (70 mi) to the south, probably by the tsunami.
One popular theory holds that the Thera eruption is the source of the legend of Atlantis, where Plato speculated that Atlantis was built on an "island within an island", and this also explains why no trace of it has ever been found.
A giant central lagoon, more or less rectangular and measuring about 12 km by 7 km (8 mi by 4 mi), is surrounded by 300 m (984 ft) high sheer cliffs on three sides. The island slopes downward from the cliffs to the surrounding Mediterranean sea. On the fourth side, the lagoon is separated from the Mediterranean by another much smaller island called Therasia, also with cliffs. The lagoon is joined to the sea in two places, in the northwest and southwest. The water in the centre of the lagoon is nearly 400 m (1,300 ft) deep, so it is an ideal safe harbour for even the biggest ships. The island's ports are all in the lagoon and there are no ports on the outside of the island. The towns of Santorini cling to the top of the cliff looking down on the lagoon, in the distance they look like icing frosting on the top of a cake.
In the centre of the lagoon is a relatively new island which has been generated by volcanic activity over the last five hundred years. The last eruption to occur on this new island happened in 1950. The inhabitants of Santorini number no more than 13,000, but there are over 600 churches on the island ring, their congregations praying that the cataclismic eruptions will never happened again, but the scientist in me knows that this is only wishful thinking, there is a major volcanic fault under this island it's going to blow again. It may not happen today, tomorrow, next year, next decade, but it will happen again it is only a matter of time. I think that was part of the visiting this place, knowing that you are standing on a potential boiling cauldron.
