21/09

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Mega Trench

When we first began researching the trip we spoke to Dr Ioannis Papanikolaou, a Greek earthquake geologist, telling him we wanted to find out about any possible benefits of fault lines. His answer was immediate… when you come to Greece you’ll see.

And driving from Nafpaktos to Athens we did. The landscape is carved up into dramatic mountain ranges set against the sparkling sea. We drove through the ski resort of Mount Parnassos, just an hour or so away from the sandy beaches of the Aegean coast. And it’s fault lines that have created this.

Greece is the most seismically active country in Europe, with almost half the continent’s seismic energy released here.
It’s easy to see why…

Linked to each of the plate boundaries there are numerous smaller faults just as capable of producing earthquakes and these criss cross the Southern part of the country, the Peloponnese.

We met Ioannis in Corinth where the first stop is its famous canal. Best known as an amazing feat of engineering it’s also a geology field trip favourite because it’s full of fault lines.

Beyond creating the beautiful scenery, fault lines leave clear imprints in the geography and landscape. They are stores of information that can be mined by earthquake geologists.