Final Blog

Santorini’s volcanic landform was created by subduction; oceanic and continental crust subduction to be exact. When subduction occurs ocean crust collides with continental crust and subducts causing a volcano to form.  Santorini today is the result of a huge volcanic explosion that caused resulted in a caldera. Calderas form when land collapses following a volcano eruption. They are like deep holes in the ground where land submerges.

 Santorini enjoys a mild-mid latitude climate, a suitable fit for the Mediterranean. The mild- mid latitude climate indicates brings about dry summers and wet winters. The warm and dry season for Santorini begins in April and lasts until October, and the cold and rainy season starts from November through March.

Santorini has a coastal landscape since it’s surrounded by the Mediterranean Sea. Tides indeed form in the Mediterranean as the moon’s gravity pulls the sea water towards it creating lumps in the water. Waves form in orbital patterns that cause breakers such as spilling breakers. Spilling breakers are the small whitewater waves that you see right by the shore.

In 10 years, due to the rise of the greenhouse effect my guess is that Santorini’s temperature will increase. We’re emitting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere like crazy which plays a key role in global warming. Thus, if we keep the CO2 up the average temperatures for Santorini’s climate will increase, causing it to be much warmer.  A potentially dangerous consequence of global warming is a rise in sea level, which is currently happening.

Since Santorini is surrounded by water the greenhouse effect can have a major impact on its landform in 100 years or much less than that. First, major erosion can occur. Santorini’s coastal landform can be dramatically eroded resulting in sea stacks. This erosion mostly comes from storms, and global warming makes us more prone to storms and floods.  During this time there will also be weathering of rocks by both physical and chemical weathering since everything is always changing. My guess is that faults will also form because of the pressure put on rocks with the dramatic climate change. Going along with the global warming issue, if we do not do something about CO2 excess and change it now, it is possible that in 1000 years Santorini will no longer exist. It will be inundated due to a ridiculous rise in sea level caused by global warming.

3rd blog

Santorini’s climate is quite pleasant as it enjoys a mild-mid latitude climate, a suitable fit for the Mediterranean. When speaking of climate keep in mind that we’re talking about an average atmospheric condition during a long period of time as oppose to weather which refers to a condition during any given moment. The mild- mid latitude climate on this beautiful Greek island indicates it has dry summers and wet winters which is totally true. The warm and dry season for Santorini begins in April and lasts until October. On the other hand, the cold and rainy season starts from about November through March. Although these months are the wettest there’s not much rainfall since on average there’s about 74mm of rainfall during December and January, and it drops in February.  With two clear distinctions between wet and dry it seems that Santorini contains two seasons: summer and winter.

On any given day, most likely during the winter, thunderstorms occur in Santorini (weather). Thunderstorms need moisture to create clouds and rainfall, and they also need unstable warm air. The moderately warm air can be quickly lifted from the Aegean Sea breezes making the thunderstorm easier to form. There are three stages in the formation of a thunderstorm. First, cumulus clouds form when the warm air is lifted; called the updraft cumulus stage. Second, the mature stage causes updrafts and downdrafts. Downdrafts create a gust front producing heavy rainfall and sometimes lightning. The dissipating stage follows and cooled air flows out from the thunderstorm calming the storm.

                               

2nd Blog

I took a closer look at the rocks in Santorini and the weathering that has decayed and shaped them. I came across this rock landscape in the village of Imerovigli, Santorini and noticed some salt weathering, especially on the rocks on top. Salt weathering is a physical process that occurs when water cannot wash away salts due to a deficiency of it. Crystallization, a main process of salt weathering, happens as water spreads through fractures that contain ions which form crystals as they expand. Heat and cooling pressure also causes salt weathering.

Next, we have chemical weathering which chemically changes rocks and minerals. The first thing that stood out to me here was the reddish color on the rock which hints to oxidation being a likely process. Oxidation is like rust in which free oxygen reacts with minerals that alters and ion’s oxidation.

A slope present here suggests some type of mass wasting. It looks like slides to me. Slides happen with weakness present in the rock as down movement occurs along its plane. Translation slides are flat planes while rotational slump slides are curved planes of failure. Thus, this picture illustrates a rotational slump.

This picture was taken in beautiful Oia, Santorini. Looking to the right side of the picture we see a rock with finger size holes called Alveoli. The holes come from cavernous weathering, a type of salt weathering. Now, looking at the rocks on the left side tells me that a mass wasting event perhaps occurred and caused all these rocks to fall. Falls begin with detachment and are due to steep slopes or undercutting.

1st Blog

Subduction created Santorini’s volcanic landform. More specifically, it was formed by oceanic and continental crust subduction. In this instance, the ocean crust collided with the continental crust and subducted under causing a volcano to form. Santorini has a mafic extrusive volcanic landform. A mafic landform refers to basalt volcanic forms which suggest that they have low viscosity with less outrageous explosions. Therefore, this volcanic island is considered a shield volcano. Shield volcanoes have effusive eruptions, meaning that the lava they excrete flows easily on Earth’s surface. Effusive eruptions classify Shield Volcano’s as the least dangerous of the three volcano types because they have the slightest viscosity and eruptions and give you time to escape (Allen, 2012).

 Santorini, today, resulted from a huge volcanic explosion that occurred about 3,500 years ago and created a caldera (Greeka, 2012). Calderas are formed when land collapses following a volcano eruption. They are like deep holes in the ground where land has submerged. Thus, Santorini is the perfect example of a caldera.

Given Santorini’s volcanic landform, it mostly contains igneous rocks. Igneous rocks form by the cooling and crystallization of magma on Earth’s surface (Allen, 2012). Created by lava flow, igneous rocks are dark in color.

Citations:
1. Santorini Caldera: The Caldera of Santorini. (2012).
    Retrieved from: http://www.greeka.com/cyclades/santorini
2. Allen, C. (2012). Earth's Materials Outilne. (lecture notes).
    Retrieved from: http://clasfaculty.ucdenver.edu/callen/1202
3. Allen, C.(2012). Volcanic Landforms.
    Retrieved from:http://clasfaculty.ucdenver.edu/callen/1202

Introduction

Hi! My name is Jacky Martinez and I am a senior at UCD. I am majoring in Psychology and Sociology. I have chosen to explore Santorini, Greece which is a Greek volacanic island located in the southern part of the Aegean Sea. Santorini (Thira) is about 234 km from Athens, Greece.
I chose Santorini because it took my breath away when I first saw it in a movie. I thought it was absolutely beautiful. I love its white architecture, it's very charming. It just seems like a magical place to me. Ever since I learned about Santorini I've been dreaming about going so I hope to do so next year.