by Pierre Du Plessis

Created on: January 05, 2008

Volcanoes

A terrible noise fills the air. Rocks are thrown hundreds of feet into the air. A cloud of ash blots out the sun. The mountain which was once so peaceful glows red as lava pours down its slopes. Volcano eruptions can come suddenly, with just a few days of warning, if any.
In the eruption of Thira, or Santorini as it is known as now, Europe's first great civilisation came to an end. The Minions lived on islands such as Thira and Naxos, and had their capital on Crete. It is estimated about 40000 people lived on Crete at the time. So how did the volcano eruption affect so many people?

Well, the Minoans on Thira probably had sufficient warning, and got on ships to sail away. When the volcano erupted, the Minoans were probably still on their ships, because this was over 3000 years ago, and their ships weren't very fast.
A volcano eruption may cause a pyroclastic storm, or a firestorm. These firestorms are mixes of hot ash, dust, and other materials travelling very fast. They can be over 1000 degrees hot and can melt glass. It is possible for one of these to skim along water for large distances. They can incinerate people instantly.
It is possible that one of these pursued the Minoans across the Aegean Sea, although I think it altogether more likely that the fleeing Minoans perished because of a tidal wave. As the volcano erupted, it collapsed into the sea, which would have triggered a tsunami. This tsunami probably destroyed the Minoan's ships if they were still at sea, and many of the Minoan's other settlements, like we saw on the Boxing Day tsunami a few years ago. If any Minoans survived, it is unknown what became of them.
It has been speculated that this eruption may have caused events of the Old Testament, such as the plagues in Egypt and the splitting of the Red Sea.

There have been similar events, for instance the eruption of Vesuvius when Pompeii was destroyed. In his novel Pompeii, Rob Harris writes about the effects the eruption had on the unsuspecting citizens of Pompeii. Some of the effects were that the main water supply of Pompeii stopped because of a small earthquake, poisonous gases were released and firestorms killed thousands of people in seconds.

In the eruption of Tambora in Indonesia in 1815, a tribe living on the island was wiped out, and so much dust, ash and other materials were shot into the atmosphere that the sun couldn't shine through properly. This caused the next year, 1816, to be so cold, that it was later known as the year without

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