Printed on August 27, 2007 National Geographic Channel

Recently in Europe Category

Doomsday Volcano

February 27, 2007 4:28 PM

Iana Porter We descend down the cable car into the flooded crater of the doomsday volcano. This 5-mile wide caldera incites the imagination. The power that created this is unfathomable. Volcanoes are so complex that it’s hard for the experts to predict exactly when they will blow or how lethal their eruptions might be. This makes for a slightly edgy feeling. We have come to Santorini island, Greece to film National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence Bob Ballard on an unprecedented underwater expedition into the heart of Thera. It is one of the most powerful volcanoes in human history.

3600 years ago this was ground zero. A colossal eruption spewed ash into the sky, shot searing gas hurricanes and raging tsunamis for miles in all directions and turned day into night for over 100,000 square miles. When it was all over, the city of Akrotiri lay buried in nearly 200 feet of ash and the world was thrust into a "big chill," with temperatures cooling across the entire planet. At around the same time, the Minoans, Europe's first civilization, vanished mysteriously. Could Thera’s explosion have reached their palaces 75 miles away in Crete? For nearly a century, experts scoured the land for geologic clues to the magnitude of the eruption. But a frustrating obstacle persisted. The powerful eruption shot huge volumes of magma out beyond the island and into the surrounding sea. Where it has remained hidden until now.

Continue reading Doomsday Volcano.

0 Comments

0 TrackBacks

Recently in Europe Category

Doomsday Volcano

Community Links

Share This Blog

Recent Blog Comments

Monthly Archives

Categories

NAT GEO NEWSLETTER