{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.026139817629179333, 'fraction_numerical': 0.01762917933130699, 'mean_word_length': 4.6563573883161515, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
FRIEDRICH, W. L. 2000. Fire in the Sea. The Santorini Volcano: Natural History and the Legend of Atlantis. Translated by A. R. McBirney. xiv+258 pp. Cambridge University Press. Price £19.95, US $34.95 (hard covers). ISBN 0 521 65290 1.

Santorini is one of the best known caldera volcanoes in the World. Its fame comes from the spectacular geology of the caldera wall and the catastrophic large magnitude explosive eruption of the late Bronze Age which had major effects on eastern Mediterranean civilisation of the time. The ancient Minoan town of Akrotiri is preserved beneath many metres of pumice and ash from the eruption, with some of the most wonderful frescoes of the ancient world. Santorini has thus fascinated scientists and scholars for well over a century, ever since the pioneering studies of the French scientist Fouque, who published his seminal study of Santorini in 1879. Santorini has been a major stimulus for research in volcanology, archaeology and art history. There is at least a plausible case for linking Santorini with the legend of Atlantis and so the island and its story have received wide interest from the public. Walter Friedrich, an eminent Earth scientist from Aarhus University, Denmark, had made important contributions to understanding the geology of Santorini, and has now produced a very attractive book on the island.

Fire in the Sea deals with all major aspects of the history of Santorini from the perspective of science and scholarship. The book includes a great deal of geology with an account of the stratigraphy, palaeontology, structural geology, and volcanology of the island. The great Bronze …