The caldera

Thira (see last post... Santorini for the uninitiated) is a volcano.  It last erupted (a little) in 1950.  The magma is pushing the two "islands" in the middle up, and in 2011, there was A LOT of seismic activity and the caldera (the circular area of the volcano) grew in diameter by 14 centimeters and the "islands" in the middle are taller by 11 centimeters.  That is a lot for one summer.  We took a trip to the caldera by boat today.  Utterly fascinating for multiple reasons.

The first is the volcano.  How many people walk on the rim of a volcano?  I count myself among the lucky.  There were two barren islands in the center of the circular area of Santorini, one with rudimentary soil and several goats and a chicken, and the other with nothing.  We walked to the summit of the first.  There were multiple craters from various small eruptions.  Santorini is an explosive volcano (as opposed to the ones that just have lava flows) and they think the next time the pressure builds, it might go.  In 2011, there was a lot of tremors, and then some steam, so we are ok for now.  There is a team of vulcanologists from Palermo up there now measuring, trying to understand (and therefore predict) this kind of volcano.  We walked around numerous craters and up to the peak.

Vulcanologists from Palermo monitoring seismic activity.

One of the craters from a steam explosion

These are right next to the vulcanologists, so naturally we thought they were related to the seismic activity experiments, but they turn out to be created by alpine hikers appeasing good spirits.

Our incredible guide, Eugene (Evgenios). He gave the same talk in Greek, English, Italian and French. He's got 3 more languages (Dutch, Spanish, and German), but they divide tourists by language to save the guides time.  He wants to shift from being a guide to being an eco-friendly architect.  Incredibly cool guy.  In addition to languages, architecture, environmentalism, he rescued several of our party as we swam to the hot springs.

Evgenios showing us that the soil a few inches below the surface is HOT!

The hole he dug.  Steam was coming out.  It was perhaps 6 inches deep, and near the top of the "island."

One of the craters with tourists on the path above

Multiple layers of volcanic soil.  It is all the same composition, but the lighter rocks cooled slower (and with more air) than the darker rocks.

From the island in the caldera looking across the crater to the stratified cliffs of the main island of Santorini

Looking from the big "island" to the small one.

One of the rock towers created by tourists

Me at the peak