Milos

About Milos

Mílos and adjacent small islands have grown from submarine and subaerial volcanism that initially was dominantly andesitic and basaltic, but ended with predominately rhyolitic eruptions. The oldest volcanic rocks are Pliocene submarine rhyolitic pyroclastic-flow deposits overlying basement metamorphic and sedimentary rocks. The latest activity during the late Pleistocene was concentrated in the eastern half of the low, U-shaped Mílos Island, forming lava domes and phreatic explosion craters, and on Antimílos Island to the NW, where a composite volcano was constructed. The youngest magmatic eruptions took place about 90,000 years ago, but phreatic explosions, commonly producing overlapping craters rarely more than 1 km in diameter, continued from late-Pleistocene to Recent times. A lahar deposit in SE Mílos, east of Fyriplaka tuff ring, buried walls of a Roman harbor town and overlies a coarse ash layer, and was considered to originate from a small phreatic explosion through basement rocks.