Post-eruptive flooding of Santorini caldera and implications for tsunami generation

Journal article

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, new bathymetric and seismic evidence shows 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 km3 49 submarine channel, 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.

Authors: Nomikou, P; Druitt, T; Hübscher, C; Mather, T; Paulatto, M

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: Nature Publishing Group
• Journal: Nature Communications
• Volume: 7
• Article number: 13332
• Publication date: 2016-01-01
• Acceptance date: 2016-09-23
• DOI: 10.1038/ncomms13332
• ISSN: 2041-1723