Developments in Brief : Acid Gives New Look at Aegean Volcano

Scientists have reported fresh evidence that sheds new light on a volcanic eruption on the Aegean Sea island of Santorini, also called Thera, thousands of years ago.

The latest evidence shows that the eruption occurred in about 1645 BC, about 150 years earlier than previously thought, according to Danish researchers in a report in Nature magazine.

Fallout from the volcano buried the town of Akrotiri, preserving artifacts that show a blend of Middle Bronze Age traditions with new ideas from Minoan Crete.

That would make the eruption “an important marker in the assessment of the growth of Aegean and east-Mediterranean civilizations,” British archeologist Gerald Cadogan said in an editorial accompanying the article.

The Danish researchers studied an ice core from south Greenland that was formed by ancient snow deposits. They found that snow attributed to the year 1644 BC contained high levels of sulfuric acid, a substance blown out of volcanoes. Acid concentrations had started to increase before that year, suggesting the Santorini eruption took place in 1645 BC.