{"116501":{"#nid":"116501","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Santorini: The Ground is Moving Again in Paradise","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EDo a Google image search for \u201cGreece.\u201d Before you find pictures of the Parthenon or Acropolis, you\u2019ll see several beautiful photos of Santorini, the picturesque island in the Aegean Sea. The British Broadcasting Company named it the world\u2019s best island in 2011. Santorini is a tourist magnet, famous for its breathtaking, cliff side views and sunsets.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIt\u2019s also a volcanic island that has been relatively calm since its last eruption in 1950. Until now. The Santorini caldera is awake again and rapidly deforming at levels never seen before. Georgia Tech Associate Professor Andrew Newman has studied Santorini since setting up more than 20 GPS stations on the island in 2006.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cAfter decades of little activity, a series of earthquakes and deformation began within the Santorini caldera in January of 2011,\u201d said Newman, whose research is published by \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.agu.org\/pubs\/crossref\/pip\/2012GL051286.shtml\u0022\u003EGeophysical Research Letters\u003C\/a\u003E. \u201cSince then, our instruments on the northern part of the island have moved laterally between five and nine centimeters. The volcano\u2019s magma chamber is filling, and we are keeping a close eye on its activity.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ENewman, a geophysicist in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, cannot be certain whether an eruption is imminent since observations of such activity on these types of volcanoes are limited. In fact, similar calderas around the globe have shown comparable activity without erupting. However, Newman says the chamber has expanded by 14 million cubic meters since last January. That means enough magma has been pumped into the chamber to fill a sphere three football fields across.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EShould Santorini erupt, Newman says it will likely be comparable to what the island has seen in the last 450 years.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThat could be dangerous,\u201d notes Newman. \u201cIf the caldera erupts underwater, it could cause local tsunamis and affect boat traffic, including cruise ships, in the caldera. Earthquakes could damage homes and produce landslides along the cliffs.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EMore than 50,000 tourists a day flock to Santorini in the summer months (from May to October). It\u2019s common to see as many as five cruise ships floating above the volcano.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ESantorini is the site of one of the largest volcanic events in human history. The Minoan eruption, which occurred around 1650 B.C., buried the major port city of Akrotiri with more than 20 meters of ash and created Santorini\u2019s famous, present-day cliffs. Newman says such history will likely not repeat itself any time soon. Such an eruption comes along once every 100,000 years, and the current inflation in the magma chamber is less than 1 percent of the Minoan blast.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ETo see an animation of Newman\u0027s GPS stations and the angles of movement, click \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/geophysics.eas.gatech.edu\/people\/anewman\/research\/papers\/Newman_etal_GRL_2012ms01.gif\u0022\u003Ehere\u003C\/a\u003E.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThis project was supported in part by the National Science Foundation (NSF) (Award No. EAR-1153355). The content is solely the responsibility of the principal investigators and does not necessarily represent the official views of the NSF.\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":[{"value":"Georgia Tech instruments measure unprecedented deformation"}],"field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003ESantorini, a tourist magnet famous for its breathtaking cliffs and sunsets, sits atop an active volcano. That caldera is awake after more than 60 years of activity and deforming at levels never seen before. Georgia Tech\u0027s Andrew Newman has more than 20 GPS stations on the island and is keeping a close eye on a potential eruption.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"The Santorini caldera, which sits underneath a famous tourist destination, is awake again and rapidly deforming at levels never seen before."}],"uid":"27560","created_gmt":"2012-03-13 09:04:15","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:11:52","author":"Jason Maderer","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2012-03-13T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2012-03-13T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"116451":{"id":"116451","type":"image","title":"Santorini GPS Station Image 1","body":null,"created":"1449178241","gmt_created":"2015-12-03 21:30:41","changed":"1475894736","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:45:36","alt":"Santorini GPS Station Image 1","file":{"fid":"194237","name":"dscn2601.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/dscn2601_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/dscn2601_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":2156766,"path_740":"http:\/\/tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/dscn2601_0.jpg?itok=-4eA-iZ8"}},"116441":{"id":"116441","type":"image","title":"Santorini GPS Image 2","body":null,"created":"1449178241","gmt_created":"2015-12-03 21:30:41","changed":"1475894736","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:45:36","alt":"Santorini GPS Image 2","file":{"fid":"194236","name":"dscn2395.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/dscn2395_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/dscn2395_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":2198132,"path_740":"http:\/\/tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/dscn2395_0.jpg?itok=9qG6MAVg"}},"116461":{"id":"116461","type":"image","title":"Santorini GPS Station Image 3","body":null,"created":"1449178241","gmt_created":"2015-12-03 21:30:41","changed":"1475894736","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:45:36","alt":"Santorini GPS Station Image 3","file":{"fid":"194238","name":"dscn2611.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/dscn2611_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/dscn2611_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":2423824,"path_740":"http:\/\/tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/dscn2611_0.jpg?itok=j-qjdc2U"}},"116471":{"id":"116471","type":"image","title":"Andrew Newman","body":null,"created":"1449178241","gmt_created":"2015-12-03 21:30:41","changed":"1475894736","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:45:36","alt":"Andrew Newman","file":{"fid":"194239","name":"newman.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/newman_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/newman_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":69694,"path_740":"http:\/\/tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/newman_0.jpg?itok=rKwq8Kts"}}},"media_ids":["116451","116441","116461","116471"],"related_links":[{"url":"http:\/\/www.eas.gatech.edu\/people\/Andrew_Newman","title":"Andrew Newman Webpage"},{"url":"http:\/\/www.eas.gatech.edu\/","title":"School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences"},{"url":"http:\/\/www.cos.gatech.edu\/","title":"College of Sciences"}],"groups":[{"id":"1183","name":"Home"}],"categories":[{"id":"135","name":"Research"}],"keywords":[{"id":"12237","name":"Andrew Newman"},{"id":"4896","name":"College of Sciences"},{"id":"5770","name":"Earthquake"},{"id":"5104","name":"Greece"},{"id":"166926","name":"School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences"},{"id":"27001","name":"Volcano"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EJason Maderer\u003Cbr \/\u003EGeorgia Tech Media Relations\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:maderer@gatech.edu\u0022\u003Emaderer@gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E404-385-2966\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["maderer@gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}