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© Expolrecrete.comThe eruption of the Santorini Volcano
The seismic unrest beneath Santorini which had started in July 2011 continues into 2012, greeting the world with a small swarm of quakes beneath the caldera.

The slightly increased number of quakes is concentrated on the volcano-tectonic Kameni line, which stretches SW-NE through the caldera and extends outside, especially to the NE where the submarine volcano Kolumbo is located 8 km off the coast. The alignment defines a tectonic graben structure underlying Santorini and has been used for rising magma for nearly all past eruptions of the volcano.

On Tuesday, December 13th, a 3.2 earthquake occurred at the little-known submarine volcano Kolumbos ca. 8 km NE of Santorini, Island, Greece. The volcano is located on the tectonically active SW-NE fault line defining most volcanic vents of the Santorini volcanic complex in the past.

Kolumbus volcano last erupted in September 1650 after a year of frequent earthquakes. The eruption produced a large explosive pumice eruption, built a temporary island, a devastating tsunami and killed more than 25 people and hundreds of livestock by poisonous gasses (probably H2S).

There is no reason to believe that new activity is likely in a foreseeable future, but there are very few data, unfortunately, to judge the situation. We regret that the Greek monitoring institutes are not publishing more details about the ongoing activity. For some reason, access to read the earthquake details such as important parameters as their depth, are not published (they are available for all other regions in Greece, raising some suspect why not for Santorini...)