Jökull - 01.06.2000, Page 83

Sigurður Steinþórsson
conference and other recent sources. Since then, two
additional conferences have been held, funded by the
Thera Foundation, and which have yielded bulky con-
ference volumes under the name Thera and the Aege-
an World, I-III.
Walter Friedrich’s book describes very well the
most recent picture, and the history of research and
ideas leading up to it, including his own. Desig-
ned for a wide audience, the book is adorned with
a great number of photographs and diagrams in full
color. It also contains entire chapters and smaller
‘boxes’ explaining specialized concepts like plate
tectonics, radiometric age determinations, termin-
ology of volcanology, petrology, paleontology, the
significance of the Greenland ice core in dating the
eruption, etc. It is now clear that the Santorini caldera
is much older than the Minoan eruption, and that
prior to that eruption it formed an almost-complete
ring enclosing a semicircular lagoon, 10 by 7 km in
diameter (rather like half-submerged Dyngjufjöll in
Central Iceland). Like the present towns that adorn
the caldera rim, Fira and Oia, Bronze Age settlements
were built on the slope overlooking the inner lagoon,
which only had an opening towards the south-west.
The designs, architecture, artwork and artifacts
found in Santorini show that 3650 years ago the
inhabitants of Calliste (or Stronghyle, Ring Island)
pursued lively trade all over the eastern Mediterrane-
an, and that their culture was closely related to that
of contemporary Crete. Like the saga-age community
in Þjórsárdalur in SW Iceland, they were displaced by
a natural disaster which ruined their homes for ever.
Fire in the Sea is an admirable and highly-readable
account of the natural history of Santorini and the
way its relates to its human history. But the book also
shows that much remains still to be done and many
questions are still unanswered, including the crucial
one whether Santorini was in fact Atlantis.
Fire in the Sea is divided into 14 chapters which
group into four parts entitled 1. The geological
framework, 2. The Minoan eruption and its effects,
3. The volcano releases its secrets, and 4. The is-
land is changing its appearance. Plato’s dialogs, Criti-
as and Timaeus, which relate the myth of Atlant-
is are reproduced in an Appendix; two additional
Appendices list fossils and plants found in Santor-
ini. Finally there is a comprehensive list of references,
index of names, and a subject index.
SANTORINI VOLCANO. Geological Society
Memoir No. 19 by T.H. Druitt, L. Edwards, R.M.
Mellors, D.M. Pyle, R.S.J. Sparks, M. Lanph-
ere, M. Davies, and B. Barriero. The Geological
Society, London, 1999. 165 pp.
Santorini has for the last three or four decades been a
theater for intensive international research in geology
and archaeology, including research groups from
Denmark, Germany, France, Greece, Holland, Great
Britain and the USA. From this research, new underst-
anding has emerged of the stratigraphy, volcanology,
petrology and geochemistry of this most famous of
caldera volcanoes. In particular, with reference to the
present book, PhD-projects on Santorini were instiga-
ted in 1980 in Cambridge and later in Bristol, from
which five PhD-theses were produced in the years
1983-94. Much of that research remained unpublis-
hed, and the Memoir is intended to make available the
results, and to assemble an up-to-date account of the
present knowledge of the volcano.
Santorini Volcano is organized into eight chap-
ters detailing the geological and tectonic setting,
petrology, geochemistry, isotope geochemistry, and
geological history and evolution of the Santorini
volcanic field. Two appendices describe the met-
hodology and analytical data, respectively, and in
an envelope inside the back cover is a brand new
geological map. Santorini has been declared one
of five laboratory volcanoes in the Environment
Programme of the European Commission. Some
Icelanders might not agree, but workers on Santor-
ini claim that “nowhere on earth can we learn so
much about volcanism as we can on this island in
the Greek Aegean Sea.” This Memoir on Santorini
Volcano does, however, provide a strong argument for
the above statement, or at least for the corollary that
provided the subject of the research is worth the effort,
a massive effort yields massive results. As a case stu-
dy in modern volcanological research, the Memoir on
Santorini Volcano is extremely illuminating.
82 JÖKULL No. 49