The displacement raised tens of thousands of earthquakes

Tens of thousands of earthquakes shook the Greek island of Santorini and the surrounding area at the beginning of the year. Now, researchers from the GFZ Helmholtz Center for Earth Sciences and GEOMAR HelmHoltz for KIEL Ocean Research, along with international colleagues, published a comprehensive geological analysis of the seismic crisis in Nature. The researchers merged data from earthquake stations and lower ocean tools that were deployed in the underwater Kolumbo volcano, 7 km from Santorini and used a newly developed method based on the location of the earthquake. This enabled the rebuilding of operations in the underground with unique details, revealing that about 300 million cubic meters of magma increased from the deep crust and came to rest at a depth of about four kilometers below the ocean bottom. During its ascension through the shell, the molten magic was born thousands of earthquakes and seismic tremors.

An unstable zero area – geological background

Santorini is located in the eastern Mediterranean and forms part of the Hellenic Sagittarius, a very active geological area. This world -famous island is the edge of Caldira, which was created by a huge volcanic eruption about 3600 years ago.

Kolumbo active volcano lies directly in the vicinity. In addition, the region is crossed through many active geological rift areas, which are the result of the African painting that pushes the northeast against the Hellenic plate. The Earth's crust at the bottom of the Mediterranean region was divided into many fine panels that turn against each other, and in some cases they are emitted and dissolved, and therefore, sources of volcanic activity.

Santorini produced multiple revolutions, the historical times, the last of which was in 1950. In 1956, two severe earthquakes occurred in the southern Aegean Sea, just 13 minutes between Santorini and the neighboring island of Amorgos. These were the sizes of 7.4 and 7.2, respectively, which led to a tsunami.

The earthquake that started in late January 2025 was leaked in this area exactly. During the crisis, more than 28,000 earthquakes were recorded. The strongest of them reached the sizes of more than 5.0. Severe shake caused great general concern during the seismic crisis, partly due to the fact that the reason was not clear at first, as it is likely to be either tectonic or volcanic.

What happened under the ground? Results from the current study

The new study now shows that the earthquake squadron has arisen through the deep transport of magma. The series of events already started in July 2024, when the magma rose to a shallow tank under Santorini. This initially led to barely remarkable lifting in Santorini by a few centimeters. At the beginning of January 2025, seismic activity intensified, and from the end of January, the magma began to rise from the depths, accompanied by intense seismic activity. However, seismic activity has turned away from Santorini at a distance of more than 10 kilometers to the northeast. During this stage, earthquake foci moved in several pulses from a depth of 18 km to a depth of only 3 km below the sea floor. The timeline and spatial analysis of the earthquake distribution, along with the overlap in the satellite radio (INSAR), the GPS and the sea bottom stations, managed to design events.

“The seismic activity was typical of the magma that climbed through the Earth's crust. Migratory magma breaks rocks and form tracks, which causes intense activity,” says Dr. Marius Askin, the geophysic scientist in GFZ and one of the main authors of the study.

As a result of the movement of magma, Santorini's island has declined again, which the authors interpret as evidence of a previously unknown hydraulic relationship between volcanoes. “Through the close international cooperation and a mixture of various geophysical methods, we have been able to follow the development of the seismic crisis soon in the future” until we learn something about the interaction between volcanoes, “explains Dr. Jins Carrests, the geophysic scientist in GEOMAR and also a major author of the study.

View from many views – methods

Two factors in particular enabled the drawing of the detailed maps exceptionally. For one of them, AI's paid method has been developed in GFZ for automatic evaluation of large seismic data groups. Second, GEOMAR had already published underwater sensors in the Kolumbo volcano at the beginning of January as part of the Multi-Marex project. These sensors are not measured by seismic signals directly over the tank, but also the pressure changes resulting from the sea floor landing up to 30 cm while storming the magma below Colombo.

Scientific research activity continues on Santorini despite the decrease in seismic activity. GFZ performs frequent gas and temperature measurements on Santorini, while GEOMAR currently operates eight sensor platforms at the sea floor.

“The joint results have always been shared with the Greek authorities in order to enable the fastest and most accurate position of the possible situation in the new earthquake event,” says Professor Dr. Haiderron Cope, Professor of Geodar Navy at GEOMAR and project manager at Multi-Marex. Participated author Professor Dr. Paraskivi Namiko, Professor of Geological Ocean Science at the University of Athens and works closely with German partner institutes in the Murei-Marex project. She adds: “This long -term cooperation made it possible to manage events jointly at the beginning of the year and analyze them specifically from a scientific point of view. Understanding dynamics in this geological active region as much as possible is the most important matter for the safety and protection of the population.”

About: Multi-Marex

Multi-Marex is one of four projects in the research mission “paths to improve risk management in the field of extremist marine events and natural risks”, which is implemented by the German Marine Research Alliance (DAM). It combines ten partner institutions from six universities and follow the Helmhuliz GFZ and GEOMAR in Germany. The goal is to develop a laboratory in the real world to investigate extremist geomarine events such as earthquakes, volcanic and tsunami in the central Mediterranean region.

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Monitoring study

Article title

A volcanic crisis reveals the magma system associated with Santorini and Colombo

The date of the publication of the article

24 Sep-2025

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