Hello everyone,
The Santorini active volcano complex together with the Soufrière Hills Volcano (Montserrat) is arguably one of the most extensively documented active volcanoes on the planet.
Please correct me if I am wrong.
At Santorini, cyclic activity, with caldera filling for 20-40ka ends up loading the magmatic system, leading to magmatic differentiation and overpressure leading to a caldera forming eruption ending each cycle.
This is one strong argument suggesting that the next caldera-forming eruption at Santorini may not occur for at least another 10-15ka or so, since the Kameni Shield has only been growing for 3.6ka or so from the caldera floor.
Yet, any phreatomagmatic eruption from vents at or slighly below sea-level on the Kameni Line (NE-SW line of vents from which most eruptions have occurred for the past 360ka or so) can lead to locally hazardous explosive eruptions. The Santorini volcano is monitored to try and cover for this, as I understand.
There is a shallow submarine active volcano located about 6km to the NE of Santorini, the Columbos Bank volcano, which is known to have had a hazardous explosive eruption at ca. 1650 and is also located on an extensive and long-active tectonic lineament (ca. ENE-WSW)
My understanding is that, in addition to high-magnitude tectonic earthquakes in the region, that a future phreatomamatic eruption at the Columbos Bank Volcano may represent the main hazard for the Santorini population and its numerous tourists.
I am wondering to what extent this shallow marine Columbos Bank active volcano is currently monitored and in what way ?
Any pointers most welcome.
Greetings to all,
Gerald
Hello Gerald,
Very interesting topic!
I am sure the Santorini area is closely monitored by a great number of investigators in Greece. An example of this work is the attached recent paper.
It would be seismic monitoring as well as the results of the underwater investigation by the team from Rhode Island & Greek institutions. The picture was made from that expedition and was published in Greek newspapers. I show it to my students in all geology courses.
http://www.geophysics.geol.uoa.gr/papers/ESC2012/abstract_ESC2012_papadimitriou1.pdf
Hi Gerald,
Santorini volcano has being monitored by Greek and foreign Institutions for many years now.
Kolumbo volcano is the most active submarine volcano in the East Med which has been erupted in 1650. In 2006, Greek and scientists from Rhode Island explored the area using ROVs and discovered an active hydrothermal vent at the depth of 500m. Since then, numerous oceanographic cuises either by Greek vessel AEGAEO or by E/V Nautilus have been occured and the results have been published in scientific papers.
The answer to your question..is No..but we have submitted some proposals for making that happens.
And Micheal, there are better published maps that you can show to the students.
Have a look at some papers and let me know how can I help more!!
As I was born in Santorini...my research is being focused on this unique volcano!!
Best
Evi
http://paraskevinomikou.weebly.com/
In addition to what Paraskevi Nomikou said and in partial reply to your question, I want to say that periodic campaigns of sampling of fluids emitted from Kolumbo hydrothermal system could be a good way to make monitoring. In particular, the periodic measurement of 3He/4He in fluids released in volcanic areas is widely recognized to be probably the most powerful medium- to long-term geochemical tracer of magma dynamics at depth. You can also have a look to my paper (Rizzo et al., 2015 G-cubed) on Santorini in which we observed an important variation of this ratio during the 2011-2012 unrest. But there are several other examples in other volcanic areas (Etna, Stromboli, El Hierro, Turrialba) that demonstrate the potential of 3He/4He ratio in volcano monitoring. Last example is that observed at Ontake volcano by Sano et al. (2015, Scientific Reports).
Paraskevi, I and other colleagues are working on this and in the next months we will present the first results of 2014 study on gas composition of fluids emitted from Kolumbo.
All the best,
Andrea
Dear Gerald, in addition to the answer of Andrea I can give a news...we collected fumarolic gases from the kolumbo bottom using a row..as expecte, .data are typical hydrothermal gases with clues of magmatic-related contribution. Thus, perfect for a geochemical monitoring. Unfortunately, a lot of money are needed for these campaignsand no projects are active there...
cheers
Franco
Dear Franco, Andrea and Evi,
Thank you for all the answers.
It seems that there are ways to monitor this potentially very hazardous volcano, which if it erupted explosively again (as it did around 1650 AD) could also potentially pose a threat to international air traffic over Europe (it is not long ago when a weak explosive eruption in S Iceland caused havock to international air traffic), it could trigger a substantial tsunami in the Mediterranean, and directly impact the Island population of Santorini that increases greatly during the touristic season.
Such an eruption could be triggered by a large tectonic earthquake (these are recurrent in this region of the Mediterranean) and this too could pose a substantial hazard and cause a tsunami in itself.
You have all hinted at money issues preventing such monitoring from being implemented. It seems to me that it is a cause for concern when essential monitoring to ensure public safety in Europe is not occurring due to lack of money.
Thank you again and best wishes with your research,
Gerald
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