20090608 Methana peninsula Peloponnese view from the sea Greece

The Methana volcano peninsula is situated approximately southwest of

Athens Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates ...

Greece Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders ...

Geological history

The

Methana Methana ( el, Μέθανα) is a town and a former municipality on the Peloponnese peninsula, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Troizinia-Methana, of which it is a municipal unit. The municipal unit has ...

(Μέθανα) peninsula contains some 32

volcanoes A volcano is a rupture in the crust of a planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface. On Earth, volcanoes are most often found where tectonic plates a ...

, including the Methana volcano, that are mostly andesitic and dacitic lava domes. The volcanic activity in the peninsula began 1 million years ago and continued sporadically until 300 years ago. The last eruptions took place in 1700 at a submarine volcano north of

Kameni Chora Megalochori ( el, Μεγαλοχώρι) is a village and a community in the western part of the volcanic Methana peninsula, Greece. It is located 3 km northwest of Methana town. The community consists of the villages Megalochori, Vathy, Kaimen ...

. On land there is also the historic lava dome of

that erupted in 230 BC. In August 1922 there were numerous reports of a possible eruption in the Kaimeno Vouno crater, however, this still remains unconfirmed. Methana is in the northwestern part of the group of

Cycladic The Cyclades (; el, Κυκλάδες, ) are an island group in the Aegean Sea, southeast of mainland Greece and a former administrative prefecture of Greece. They are one of the island groups which constitute the Aegean archipelago. The nam ...

volcanoes that are considered active (

Milos Milos or Melos (; el, label=Modern Greek, Μήλος, Mílos, ; grc, Μῆλος, Mêlos) is a volcanic Greek island in the Aegean Sea, just north of the Sea of Crete. Milos is the southwesternmost island in the Cyclades group. The ''Venus d ...

, Santorini and

Nisyros Nisyros also spelled Nisiros ( el, Νίσυρος, Nísiros) is a volcanic Greek island and municipality located in the Aegean Sea. It is part of the Dodecanese group of islands, situated between the islands of Kos and Tilos. Its shape is appr ...

). The rocks are mostly

dacite Dacite () is a volcanic rock formed by rapid solidification of lava that is high in silica and low in alkali metal oxides. It has a fine-grained (aphanitic) to porphyritic texture and is intermediate in composition between andesite and rhyolite ...

s and

andesite Andesite () is a volcanic rock of intermediate composition. In a general sense, it is the intermediate type between silica-poor basalt and silica-rich rhyolite. It is fine-grained (aphanitic) to porphyritic in texture, and is composed predo ...

s. On

there are

thermal springs A hot spring, hydrothermal spring, or geothermal spring is a spring produced by the emergence of geothermally heated groundwater onto the surface of the Earth. The groundwater is heated either by shallow bodies of magma (molten rock) or by circ ...

and mofettes (gas exhalations). Methana is cut by many tectonic faults, and so it is an area in high danger of earthquakes. The major fault cuts the town of Methana from west to east.

Archaeological history

The

peninsula has been inhabited since about 10,000 BC. The first settlements were founded about 6,000 BC. Excavations have brought to light a village and

sanctuary A sanctuary, in its original meaning, is a sacred place, such as a shrine. By the use of such places as a haven, by extension the term has come to be used for any place of safety. This secondary use can be categorized into human sanctuary, a sa ...

from Mycenaean times near the town of

at the chapel of Sts. Constantine & Helen. Items dating from about 1500–1200 BC are preserved in the museums of

Poros Poros ( el, Πόρος) is a small Greek island-pair in the southern part of the Saronic Gulf, about south from the port of Piraeus and separated from the Peloponnese by a wide sea channel, with the town of Galatas on the mainland across the ...

island and in Piraeus Archaeological museum in Athens. There were ancient sanctuaries in Geometric times, about 800–700 BC, such as the Geometric temple near Kounoupitsa village. There are also two ancient acropoleis (Paliocastro acropolis and Oga acropolis) and many ancient farm sites. The ancient writers

Ovid Pūblius Ovidius Nāsō (; 20 March 43 BC – 17/18 AD), known in English as Ovid ( ), was a Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus. He was a contemporary of the older Virgil and Horace, with whom he is often ranked as one of the th ...

, Strabo and

Pausanias Pausanias ( el, Παυσανίας) may refer to: *Pausanias of Athens, lover of the poet Agathon and a character in Plato's ''Symposium'' *Pausanias the Regent, Spartan general and regent of the 5th century BC * Pausanias of Sicily, physician of t ...

described the historic eruption of the volcano dome near the village of Kameni Chora in the northwestern part of the Methana peninsula. Pausanias also described hot springs after the eruption. Later there were many new buildings and sanctuaries founded near the village Vathy, at the Paliocastro hill and around it. Methana was also the site of a

Phoenicia Phoenicia () was an ancient thalassocratic civilization originating in the Levant region of the eastern Mediterranean, primarily located in modern Lebanon. The territory of the Phoenician city-states extended and shrank throughout their histor ...

n base called Arsinoe.

References

External links

Volcanoes of Greece Pleistocene lava domes Landforms of Islands (regional unit) Landforms of Attica Holocene lava domes {{Attica-geo-stub