Fire in the Sea: The Santorini Volcano: Natural History and the Legend of Atlantis
Site of one of the most intensely studied volcanoes, Santorini in the Aegean Sea supported the thriving Minoan civilization until a titanic eruption about 3,600 years ago. Now Santorini attracts a seasonal influx of tourists to appreciate the spectacular volcano, a semicircular caldera rising hundreds of meters above the sea, which the wealth of photographs in Friedrich's survey, though intended to help explain Santorini's stratigraphy, shows off handsomely. The basic explanation of the volcano is simple: it resulted from an upwelling of magma from the subduction of the African plate beneath the Eurasian plate. Its surface expression is a layer cake of deposits, which is to be expected from a place that blows up every few millennia. The heart of the text describes how the rocks of Santorini were dated and a sequence of eruptions established. In the course of geological fieldwork, the relics of a buried civilization have come to light. Friedrich capably summarizes that archaeological discovery, complete with the notion that the Minoan civilization inspired Plato's reference to AtlantisGilbert TaylorCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved