Santorini
Views of Santorini, from the sea, on the island & of the caldera from Santorini. See separate album for views of Oia.
Santorini is one of the most beautiful & impressive islands in the world, with its craggy precipices, the legend of the lost island of Atlantis, the deep blue of the sea, the white of the pumice-stone & the black intensity of the lava.
3.600 years ago, the Strongyli volcano collapsed, creating the huge cauldron of the caldera we see today. The Santorini Island complex, Thira, Thirasia, & Aspronisi, are the fragments that remained above the surface of the sea after the collapse, while the rest, the greatest portion of the island, disappeared under the water. Not long after the caldera was formed, molten rock, viscous magma with few gases, again began to flow up in the center of it, solidifying in contact with the seawater and thus slowly building up a submarine volcanic structure which would eventually become the foundation of the Kameni Islets, Palea & Nea.