The 1481 Rhodes earthquake occurred at 3:00 in the morning on 3 May. It triggered a small

tsunami A tsunami ( ; from ja, 津波, lit=harbour wave, ) is a series of waves in a water body caused by the displacement of a large volume of water, generally in an ocean or a large lake. Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and other underwater exp ...

, which caused local flooding. There were an estimated 30,000 casualties. It was the largest of a series of

earthquake An earthquake (also known as a quake, tremor or temblor) is the shaking of the surface of the Earth resulting from a sudden release of energy in the Earth's lithosphere that creates seismic waves. Earthquakes can range in intensity, fr ...

s that affected

Rhodes Rhodes (; el, Ρόδος , translit=Ródos ) is the largest and the historical capital of the Dodecanese islands of Greece. Administratively, the island forms a separate municipality within the Rhodes regional unit, which is part of the S ...

, starting on 15 March 1481, continuing until January 1482.

Tectonic setting

The island of Rhodes lies on part of the boundary between the

Aegean Sea The Aegean Sea ; tr, Ege Denizi ( Greek: Αιγαίο Πέλαγος: "Egéo Pélagos", Turkish: "Ege Denizi" or "Adalar Denizi") is an elongated embayment of the Mediterranean Sea between Europe and Asia. It is located between the Balkans ...

and African plates. The tectonic setting is complex, with a

Neogene The Neogene ( ), informally Upper Tertiary or Late Tertiary, is a geologic period and system that spans 20.45 million years from the end of the Paleogene Period million years ago ( Mya) to the beginning of the present Quaternary Period Mya. ...

history that includes periods of

thrusting Thrust is a reaction force described quantitatively by Newton's third law. When a system expels or accelerates mass in one direction, the accelerated mass will cause a force of equal magnitude but opposite direction to be applied to that syst ...

extension Extension, extend or extended may refer to: Mathematics Logic or set theory * Axiom of extensionality * Extensible cardinal * Extension (model theory) * Extension (predicate logic), the set of tuples of values that satisfy the predicate * Ext ...

and strike slip. It sits in what is known as the

Hellenic arc The Hellenic arc or Aegean arc is an arcuate mountain chain of the southern Aegean Sea located on the southern margin of the Aegean Sea Plate. Geologically it results from the subduction of the African Plate under it along the Hellenic subductio ...

, which is in an area that is highly vulnerable to seismic activity, and historically always has been, dating back to the

226 BC Rhodes earthquake The Rhodes earthquake of 226 BC, which affected the island of Rhodes, Greece, is famous for having toppled the large statue known as the Colossus of Rhodes. Following the earthquake, the statue lay in place for nearly eight centuries before bein ...

. Currently the island of Rhodes is undergoing a counter-clockwise rotation (17° ±5° in the last 800,000 years) associated with the south Aegean sinistral

strike-slip In geology, a fault is a planar fracture or discontinuity in a volume of rock across which there has been significant displacement as a result of rock-mass movements. Large faults within Earth's crust result from the action of plate tectonic ...

fault system. The island had also been tilted to the northwest during the

Pleistocene The Pleistocene ( , often referred to as the ''Ice age'') is the geological Epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from about 2,580,000 to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was fina ...

, an uplift attributed to a

reverse fault In geology, a fault is a planar fracture or discontinuity in a volume of rock across which there has been significant displacement as a result of rock-mass movements. Large faults within Earth's crust result from the action of plate tectoni ...

lying just to the east of Rhodes.

Damage

Sources refer to destruction in Rhodes Town; the Palace of the Grand Master of the Knights of Rhodes was sufficiently damaged to require immediate rebuilding (Rhodes was at the time under siege by the Turks). The damage caused by the earthquakes led to a wave of rebuilding after 1481. Damage from the tsunami was said to be greater than from the earthquake. The tsunami caused a large ship to break free from its moorings. It (or another ship) later sank with loss of all its crew after running onto a reef. There were an estimated 30,000 casualties.

Characteristics

Tsunami

The tsunami appears to have been relatively minor, estimated at a maximum 1.8 m. However, it was observed on the

Levant The Levant () is an approximate historical geographical term referring to a large area in the Eastern Mediterranean region of Western Asia. In its narrowest sense, which is in use today in archaeology and other cultural contexts, it is ...

ine coasts and a tsunami sediment layer found at

Dalaman Dalaman is a district, as well as the central town of that district, situated on the southwestern coast of Turkey, in the Muğla Province. Dalaman Stream (''Dalaman çayı'') forms much of the western border of the district, where its neighbo ...

, on the southwest coast of Turkey. Although the studies on

sediment transport Sediment transport is the movement of solid particles (sediment), typically due to a combination of gravity acting on the sediment, and/or the movement of the fluid in which the sediment is entrained. Sediment transport occurs in natural system ...

from tsunamis are limited, it is probable that the tsunami can be dated 1473 ± 46. The sediment found and studied appears to be consistent with the aforementioned tsunami.

Earthquake

There was a major foreshock on 15 March of that year. Following the mainshock on 3 May, earthquakes (presumably

aftershock In seismology, an aftershock is a smaller earthquake that follows a larger earthquake, in the same area of the main shock, caused as the displaced crust adjusts to the effects of the main shock. Large earthquakes can have hundreds to thousa ...

s) continued until January 1482, with large aftershocks on 5 May, 12 May, 3 October and 18 December. The estimated magnitude for the mainshock is 7.1 on the surface wave magnitude scale.

References

{{Earthquakes in Greece 15th-century earthquakes Earthquakes in Greece Rhodes earthquake Rhodes under the Knights Hospitaller Events in Rhodes Tsunamis in Greece