A volcano that has been dormant for more than 100,000 years may awaken

A volcano can sleep longer than the entire human civilization and yet wake up suddenly. Swiss researchers have just shown that a volcano in Greece, the Methana, remained inactive not for ten thousand, nor fifty thousand, but for one hundred thousand years, before erupting again. One hundred thousand years is a thousand human generations. One might think that a volcano that has been inactive for so long is definitively dead, and yet: it only takes one awakening to change everything. Popular belief has it that after ten thousand years of silence, a volcano is classified as extinct. But this boundary is arbitrary, and the history of Methana proves that the Earth does not follow our calendars. Scientists from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, led by a team from the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, have closely studied Methana. This volcano is located 50 kilometers southwest of Athens, in a volcanic arc that also includes the famous Santorini. Their investigation reveals two cycles of eruptions, separated by a pause of one hundred thousand years. Imagine the number of civilizations that were able to build, cultivate, and forget all risk, settled on its fertile slopes. What makes the case of Methana even more intriguing is the proposed explanation: the water content of the magma could allow a volcano to reactivate after such a long slumber. This point divides the scientific community, with some arguing that other factors, such as tectonics or chemical composition, play a major role. But what is striking is the lesson in humility: even what we believe to be definitively stable is never really so. A Greek geologist, interviewed on site, says he grew up in the shadow of Methana, without ever worrying. For him, it was a mountain like any other, just good for picking herbs or walking his goats. He would never have imagined that under his feet, a sleeping monster was waiting for its moment. Another figure to keep in mind: there are currently about 1,500 active above-water volcanoes. But there are many more underwater volcanoes, almost impossible to count. And every volcano that we think is "buried" could, in reality, be only on pause. The real paradox is that volcanic soils, which are so fertile, attract people. We build, we cultivate, we take root, and we forget the risk, because it seems invisible to us on the scale of a lifetime. Yet the history of Methana shows that nature does not count in centuries, but in millennia. And this time frame is beyond our comprehension. What no one really addresses is the psychological effect: knowing that a volcano can wake up after a hundred thousand years changes our relationship to safety, to collective memory. If volcanoes are capable of such patience, perhaps everything we think is dormant around us is just waiting for a spark to wake up. Sleeping for a hundred thousand years, then turning everything upside down in an instant — that's the real power of volcanoes. If this story has moved you, you can mark it on Lara Notes with I'm In — it's not just a like, it's acknowledging that this idea matters to you. And if you find yourself telling a friend tomorrow that Methana woke up after a hundred millennia, you can tag it with Shared Offline: that's the Lara Notes way of saying that this conversation mattered. This topic comes from Le Monde, and it took you 2 minutes to read.