The Santorini archipelago - 6 - eruptions between 70,000 and 21,000 years ago north of Santorini.

A little jumpto north of Santorini, towards the Skaros Shield and the Therasia Dome Complex.
 

The Skaros Shield was built inside the Caldeira generated by Middle tuff eruptions (70,000 - 54,000 years ago) and covered it. The remains of the shield can be seen in Cape Tourlos (on Thêra) and on the island of Therasia.

The remains at Cap Tourlos consist of a basal complex of domes and dacitic flows, surmounted by a sequence 300 meters thick of basalts and andesites, and capped by a welded spatter agglomerate of Upper Scoriae 2, resulting from the of the development of the Skaros Shield and an explosive andesitic eruption.

Following the Upper Scoriae 2 episode, the extrusion of rhyodacites from many vents constructed the lava domes complex on the western flank of Skaros. The remains dominate the walls of the current caldera in Therasia, in a succession of more than 200 meters thick.

Thin flows of weakly phyric andesite to Oia (Oia andesites, etc.) occupy the same stratigraphic level and were probably erupted by mouths on the flank of the Skaros Shield.

The so called Cape Riva eruption occurred 21,000 - 18,000 years ago; Its products are largely dacitic or rhyodacitic, and chemically resemble to the lavas of the Therasia dome complex.

The initial phase was Pliny, with falls and deposits of pumice preserving much of the walls of the northern caldera.

The collapse of the Plinian column occurred at the end of eruption, and produced a distinctive red-brown weld ingnimbrite. The eruption then became more violent with discharge of pyroclastic flows and unfused ignimbrite. It ended with the installation of a second welded ignimbrite on the north of Thêra.

A distal distribution of tephra on the eastern Mediterranean, towards Lesbos and the Sea of ​​Marmara, is recognized as a y-2 bed of marine ash.

Let's go back to Cap Tourlos, which has been inhabited since 1207, after the integration of the island into the Venetian Duchy of the Aegean Sea. The natural rock fortress was chosen as the seat of the capital, and numerous seigniorial and religious buildings were built there. In 1480, the island gave to Pizanias Domenico, son of the Duke of Crete as dowry for his marriage to Princess Fiorentza, daughter of the Duke of Naxos. One hundred years later, the Duchy of the Aegean Sea passed into the hands of the Ottoman Empire.

Thomas Hope describes the colony, in his book "Images of the 18th Century", as a fortress to defend itself from pirate raids; A continuous facade of houses with a few small openings protected the village from the only possible access to the east, and doors accessed by a movable wooden bridge, could close in the event of a hostile invasion.

An earthquake in 1650 caused terrible damage, after which the inhabitants abandoned this narrow and difficult environment for Fira. The move was not final until the last decades of the 18th century, due to the continuing pirate raids.

Sources:

- The morphodynamic evolution of Santorini volcanic complex - 09,2019 - Paraskevi Nomikou, Konstantinos Vouvalidis and Spyros Pavlides

- Geological Society memoir n ° 19 Santorini volcano - T.H.Druitt & al.1999

- Santorini.net - Skaros, the capital of Thêra under the Venetian occupation - by Clairy Palyvou, architect, professor emeritus of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki