“If Kolumbo lights up, we’re done for, child,” distinguished marine geologist Evi Nomikou remembers her grandfather – a farmer from Vothonas – warning, speaking of the danger lurking in the underwater volcano cluster off the coast of Santorini, even back when she was in elementary school in the 1980s.
“To this day, some people continue to confuse it with the Nea Kameni volcano in the caldera, which is terrestrial. The last time Kolumbo erupted – at least in a way that was visible to the naked eye – was in 1650, spewing toxic gases that killed dozens of residents and hundreds of animals, and causing a tsunami. It was an incident that became deeply ingrained in local memory and was passed down from generation to generation, until it reached my grandfather and then me,” she tells Kathimerini.
Nomikou, an assistant professor at the University of Athens’ Department of Geology and Geoenvironment, is the driving force behind a number of scientific projects related to volcanic activity on and around her native Santorini. The most recent of these is called Santory (Santorini’s Seafloor Volcanic Observatory) and aims, for the first time, to put the Kolumbo volcano under close and regular scientific observation. It utilizes special underwater machines and cameras to collect data at a depth of 500 meters on hydrothermal fluids and volcanic gases, as well as changes in the seabed and temperature fluctuations. These all provide an indication of impending volcanic activity, known as “precursor phenomena” by the experts.
