Nea Kameni

Nea Kameni is a small, uninhabited volcanic islet at the centre of the flooded caldera that forms the Santorini archipelago in Greece. It is made entirely of dark dacite lava, ash and blocky flows with almost no soil, and it is among the youngest pieces of land in the Aegean, assembled eruption by eruption over roughly the last two thousand years. The lava dome measures about 2 kilometres across, covers around 3.4 square kilometres and rises to 114 metres at its highest point.

How the Island Was Assembled

The Kameni islands are the product of nine recorded above-water eruptions, dated to 197 BCE, AD 46-47, AD 726, 1570-1573, 1707-1711, 1866-1870, 1925-1928, 1939-1941 and 1950. Ancient writers caught the earliest of these. Pliny the Elder recorded a new island appearing near Thera in 19 CE, and Cassius Dio noted for 47 CE that a small islet, until then unknown, had made an appearance close to the island of Thera. The land that is Nea Kameni today came much later. In 1570 islanders watched a new mass break the surface northeast of Palea Kameni, and it was named Mikra Kameni, the small burnt island. The eruption of 1707 threw up two further islets, one pale and one black, which fused together within months and then joined Mikra Kameni. The last piece arrived in the summer of 1925, when a cone called Daphne rose between the existing masses and welded them into the single island seen now.

Three Centuries of Eruptions

The modern eruptions were substantial in volume. The 1707-1711 episode produced roughly 0.11 cubic kilometres of lava, the long 1866-1870 eruption about 0.17 cubic kilometres, the 1925-1928 activity some 0.08 cubic kilometres and 1939-1941 around 0.01 cubic kilometres. The final event, in 1950, was a modest lava dome extrusion, and the volcano has been quiet since. Nea Kameni is watched continuously by the Institute for the Study and Monitoring of the Santorini Volcano, whose instruments track seismic activity, ground movement, gas chemistry and the temperature of the hot springs, and the islet is protected as a national geological park rather than left as open ground.

Walking to the Crater

Boats moor at the jetty on the north shore, and a gravel path climbs from there to the crater rim roughly 130 metres above the sea. The walk is short but completely exposed, since nothing grows on the lava to give shade, and the surface underfoot is loose volcanic rubble, so sturdy shoes, a hat and water matter more than fitness does. On the way up the path passes ground that still steams and sulphur vents that are visibly active, one of them known as Jorgo after King George I of Greece. From the rim the view opens across the full sweep of the caldera to the whitewashed villages of Fira and Oia strung along the cliffs opposite.

The Hot Springs

Most visits finish at the thermal springs in the bay of Agios Nikolaos on neighbouring Palea Kameni, where geothermally heated water seeps into the sea and holds a temperature of roughly 30 to 35 degrees Celsius. Dissolved iron, manganese and sulphur give the water its rust-orange colour, and swimmers should expect light-coloured swimwear to be stained by it. Boats anchor offshore, so the last fifty metres or so are covered by swimming rather than stepping ashore. That combination of a crater walk followed by a warm swim is the reason many gulet cruises in Greece call in here as part of a day spent inside the Santorini caldera.