The Island of Thera
and the Volcano Santorin 
Armageddon  - a Volcano Explodes
ca. 1628 BC in the days of Moses

In "Zauber und Schönheit unserer Erde", published by Das Beste,
Reader's Digest, as a translation from the French original, published
in 1992, there is a chapter by Alain Person on "Santorin" and other
exploded volcanoes, about which he gives the following facts:

THE GEOLOGICAL EFFECTS

1. The caldera (volcanic crater) of the volcano Santorin is 400 meters deep and 83 kilometers (!) in circumference.
Person describes it rightly as "gigantic".
2. The caldera was formed by multiple explosions and subsequent
collapse of the emptied magma cone into the sea.
3. Brimstone, ash and other materials from this explosion
have been found in an ellipse-shaped area 600 kilometers
long and 300 kilometers wide.
4. The explosion of Thera is the best candidate for a
sunken Atlantis, since the Eastern Mediterranean is where
the African continental plate pushes northward
against and UNDER the Aegean plate, so that parts of the African
plate are consumed by this process (called the subduction zone).

MEDITERRANEAN TECTONICS

Looking at "plate tectonics" in the Enc. Brit. and at p. 208
(volcanism) of the previously cited book "Zauber",
we find that the African plate runs from the
middle of the Atlantic East through the Straits of Gibraltar,
from there in the Mediterranean more or less along the coast
of Africa, passing between Sicily and Africa,
then turning at a jagged angle south of Sicily and heading
northeast toward Greece and Corinth but also in another line
toward the middle of the Eastern Mediterranean and from there
toward Israel.
Along the Dead Sea, there is a major horizontal fault
running southward toward the Gulf of Aquaba (Sinai).
The Encyclopaedia Britannica writes: "...the Mediterranean,
where the collisions between Africa and a swarm of micro continents have produced a tectonic nightmare that is far from resolved."

Seeing is Believing

If we look at a section of a map similar to that
presented by Maurice Gennesseaux
in his article, "The Mediterranean" (p. 58-65) in the cited
source "Zauber", we see clearly
what part of the land may have "dropped"into the ocean.

There is only an extremely narrow
deep chasm between Tunisia and Sicily,
which was the possible location of the pillars of Heracles.
Gennesseaux also states that there are masses of volcanic ash
mixed in the sediments of the Mediterranean and that the volcanic
ash from Santorin covered an area of 200,000 square kilometers.
The Lion Handbook to the Bible (6th printing, 1981), p. 139,
notes as follows concerning Sodom & Gomorrah:
"The destruction: it is known from archaeology that the area
was emptied of settled occupation after about 1900 BC.
This catastrophe - probably caused by an earthquake and
explosion of gases - may be the reason. The shallow southern waters
of the Dead Sea now cover the cities."
Here again we have archaeological confirmation by many
graves found in this region and dated to ca. 1800 BC.

The Example of KRAKATOA

When Krakatoa exploded in 1883, the detonation was heard 3000 miles away
and a tsunami 100-feet high resulted, killing 36000 people. Pressure waves from the explosion were felt "around the Earth". Near the island, the masses of pumice were so thick as to halt ships. The surrounding region was darkened for 3 days. 

Ash and gas at 1500 degrees F can be blown
as high as 25 miles up and such eruptions tend to be involved
with earthquake activity. Volcanologists have even found that
light sulfur dioxide can circulate the globe years after the blast.
(See here the National Geographic article on Volcanoes,
December 1992, "darkness in daytime, ash from the sky...
and a trembling earth...like the end of the world".)

ISAIAH

Contrary to allegations that there are NO reports about the explosion of Santorin in ancient literature, the catastrophe is clearly referred to in Isaiah in great detail, as the cause of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah was Santorin - fire (ash) and brimstone came, together with a tidal wave.

Based on the crater, modern researchers have suggested
that the tidal wave headed due east from Santorin
and killed several millions in the coastlands of the fertile crescent.

The explosion of Santorin on Thera (the people are the Biblical people of Tyre, the Tarshish) is the catastrophe which occurred in Isaiah.

As Isaiah states, the Catastrophe occurred during the reign of Ahaz
( Ahaz = Pharaoh Ahmose ), father of Hezekiah
(Hezekiah = Amenophis I (haquaset)

 The Book of Zechariah

"The word of the Lord is against the land of Hadrach.... Tyre and Sidon,
though they are very wise, Tyre has built herself a rampart,
and heaped up silver like dust, and gold like the dirt of the streets.

 But lo, the Lord will strip her of her possessions
and hurl her wealth into the sea, and she shall be
devoured by fire.... Ash'kelon shall be uninhabited
a mongrel people shall dwell in Ashdod;  and I will make
an end of the pride of Philistia...

 The Book of Nahum and Thera

"An oracle concerning Nin'eveh....

 Bashan and Carmel wither, the bloom of Lebanon fades.
The mountains quake before him, the  hills melt;
the earth is laid waste before him,
the world and all that dwell  therein....

 But with an overflowing flood he will make a full end
of his adversaries.... Nin'eveh is like a pool whose waters
run away.... Desolate! Desolation and ruin! heaps
of corpses, dead bodies without end -...."