"Aegean Sea's Record-Breaking Explosive Eruption Uncovered"
An international IODP expedition has discovered evidence of one of the largest explosive eruptions ever recorded in the southern Aegean Arc, indicating a much larger submarine eruption around 520,000 years ago in the Greek Aegean. The newly discovered giant pumice deposit sampled from the seafloor at seven coastal sites around the island of Santorini suggests that the Christiana-Santorini-Kolumbo volcanic field was much more explosive in the distant past than previously thought, with a volume of more than 90 cubic kilometers and up to 150 meters thick, making it six times larger than the pyroclastic flow deposits of the Minoan eruption. Various methods were used to decipher the eruption, and despite this explosive history, researchers believe it is very unlikely that the volcanic field will experience another eruption of this magnitude in the near future.