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This Greek Volcano Seemed Quiet for 100,000 Years. Then It Erupted Again. Should Scientists Take a Second Look at 'Extinct' Volcanoes?
Key takeaways
- The last eruption of Greece’s Methana volcano was around 250 B.C.E.
- “It’s important for our society to understand that for volcanoes, quiet doesn’t always mean safe,” Razvan-Gabriel Popa, a volcanologist at ETH Zurich in Switzerland, tells Reuters’ Marta Serafinko.
- In a study published April 22 in the journal Science Advances, Popa and a team of geologists documented the past 700,000 years of the Methana volcano’s history, which included 31 eruptions.
Răzvan-Gabriel Popa / ETH Zurich. The last eruption of Greece’s Methana volcano was around 250 B.C.E. Ever since that event, which was recorded by the Greek historian Strabo, the mountain has lurked silently, just across the Saronic Gulf from Athens. But the volcano’s calm exterior could be masking a tumultuous—and potentially dangerous—inner life.
“It’s important for our society to understand that for volcanoes, quiet doesn’t always mean safe,” Razvan-Gabriel Popa, a volcanologist at ETH Zurich in Switzerland, tells Reuters’ Marta Serafinko.
In a study published April 22 in the journal Science Advances, Popa and a team of geologists documented the past 700,000 years of the Methana volcano’s history, which included 31 eruptions. Given the eruption around 250 B.C.E.—which is relatively recent on the grand scale of geologic history—Methana is considered an active volcano, not an extinct one. But its newly detailed past reveals that scientists might need to rethink the classification of some volcanoes that are currently considered extinct, because they could have hidden activity.