Citation

Nomikou P, Druitt TH, Hübscher C, Mather TA, Paulatto M, Kalnins LM, Kelfoun K, Papanikolaou D, Bejelou K, Lampridou D, Pyle DM, Carey S, Watts AB, Weiß B, Parks MM. Nat. Commun. 2016; 7: e13332.

Affiliation

Nordic Volcanological Center, Institute of Earth Sciences, University of Iceland, Reykjavík IS-101, Iceland.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2016, Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group)

DOI

10.1038/ncomms13332

PMID

27824353

Abstract

Caldera-forming eruptions of island volcanoes generate tsunamis by the interaction of different eruptive phenomena with the sea. Such tsunamis are a major hazard, but forward models of their impacts are limited by poor understanding of source mechanisms. The caldera-forming eruption of Santorini in the Late Bronze Age is known to have been tsunamigenic, and caldera collapse has been proposed as a mechanism. Here, we present bathymetric and seismic evidence showing that the caldera was not open to the sea during the main phase of the eruption, but was flooded once the eruption had finished. Inflow of water and associated landsliding cut a deep, 2.0-2.5 km(3), submarine channel, thus filling the caldera in less than a couple of days. If, as at most such volcanoes, caldera collapse occurred syn-eruptively, then it cannot have generated tsunamis. Entry of pyroclastic flows into the sea, combined with slumping of submarine pyroclastic accumulations, were the main mechanisms of tsunami production.

Language: en