{"id":421917,"date":"2026-04-28T16:56:13","date_gmt":"2026-04-28T16:56:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/421917\/"},"modified":"2026-04-28T16:56:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-28T16:56:13","slug":"greeces-methana-shows-volcanoes-can-slumber-a-long-time-before-reawakening","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/421917\/","title":{"rendered":"Greece\u2019s Methana shows volcanoes can slumber a long time before reawakening"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Greece\u2019s<\/p>\n

Brown lava rock from the youngest eruption on Methana is seen extending into the sea, with limestone visible behind, in a file photo. [Handout \/ via Reuters]<\/p>\n

For people living in communities in the shadow of a volcano, a long silence may give the impression that the geological beast is not merely sleeping but has gone extinct. But, as research detailing the life history of one in Greece shows, a volcano can slumber for more than 100,000 years before reawakening.<\/p>\n

The new findings involving the Methana Volcano, located roughly 60 km (37 miles) southwest of Athens, contradict the notion that most volcanoes may be considered \u201cextinct\u201d if they have not erupted for 10,000 years.<\/p>\n

The scientists reconstructed 700,000 years of activity for Methana, marked by eruptions separated by long pauses. The findings show that its longest quiet period \u2013 lasting from about 280,000 to 168,000 years ago \u2013 was \u2060not a sign of extinction but rather a phase of substantial \u2060underground magma accumulation. \u201cThis long period of quiescence at Methana happened during the prehistory, so we are piecing it together based on the chemical evidence preserved in the rocks and minerals. To understand what happened under Methana, we need to picture the volcano as the tip of an iceberg: at the surface we see \u200bonly a little bit of it, while most of \u2060the igneous system is underground,\u201d said ETH Z\u00fcrich volcanologist R\u0103zvan-Gabriel Popa, lead author of the study published in the journal Science Advances.<\/p>\n

Earth is made up of layers, including the outer crust we live on and the mantle immediately underneath, where \u2060magma forms. Volcanoes erupt when rising magma \u201cfloods\u201d their underground chambers and spills \u200cexcess material \u2060toward the surface, while an absence of magma supply causes them to fall quiet and gradually die.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we have now found is that in subduction zones, volcanoes can go quiet even when the mantle produces a lot of magma, but with a twist: this magma is superhydrous, and the volcano doesn\u2019t die, \u200bbut it thrives, while taking a nap,\u201d Popa said.<\/p>\n

Superhydrous magmas are extremely water-rich and are thought to drive this process.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey ascend through \u200cthe crust, they start bubbling like a fizzy drink,\u201d Popa said. \u201cThis gas bubbling triggers crystallisation, making the magma sticky and viscous, and it slows down a lot \u2013 by a factor of 100 to 1,000 \u2013 and becomes so lazy \u2026 it can\u2019t continue towards the surface.\u201d<\/p>\n

Instead, Popa said, the magma becomes trapped.<\/p>\n

\u201cSince the magma chamber can\u2019t evacuate all that \u200bexcess material, no eruption happens, and the reservoir accumulates this crystalline, sticky magma that helps it grow,\u201d Popa said.<\/p>\n

Over time, this could lead to more voluminous and potentially more energetic eruptions.<\/p>\n

To reconstruct this history, the researchers dated more than 1,250 crystals of the mineral zircon in volcanic rocks and, where zircon was absent, used other minerals such as ilmenite \u200cto track magma chamber activity even during volcanically \u200bquiet periods.<\/p>\n

Popa said such \u201csilent\u201d magma buildup can be detected with sensitive instrumentation.<\/p>\n

\u201cMagma accumulation at depth often triggers earthquakes that may be too small for us to perceive, but seismometers record them easily. The ground may also bulge by only \u2060a few centimetres per year, yet satellites and GPS can detect those \u200cchanges,\u201d Popa said.<\/p>\n

While Methana lies relatively close to the Greek capital, Popa said the volcano is not expected to pose significant threats at this stage, with any future eruptions \u200blikely to take the form of mere lava flows similar to those seen in the past.<\/p>\n

However, Popa added, the process could be more widespread than previously thought, \u200cwith \u2060many seemingly \u2060inactive volcanoes potentially continuing to build magma chambers underground, particularly in regions such as Greece, Italy, North \u200band South America and Japan.<\/p>\n

The scientists are now planning a research campaign on Ciomadul in Romania\u2019s Eastern Carpathians, a volcano that has been quiet for nearly \u200b30,000 years but still may host an active magma chamber underground.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s important for our society \u200cto understand that for volcanoes, quiet doesn\u2019t always mean safe,\u201d Popa said. [Reuters]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Brown lava rock from the youngest eruption on Methana is seen extending into the sea, with limestone visible…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":421918,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[246,61,60,43,82,2713],"class_list":["post-421917","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-environment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news","tag-science","tag-study"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421917","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=421917"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421917\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/421918"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=421917"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=421917"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=421917"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}