Geology and Archaeology in the Gulf of Corinth, Greece

Participants meet at the hotel in Athens for an introduction to the tour and to members of the group. The hotel is a 30-minute taxi ride from the Athens International Airport.

Overnight in Athens. Group dinner.

The first full day will be in Athens and will include a guided tour and visits to the world-famous historical sites of the city. Time will be spent at a combination of the World Heritage Site of the Acropolis, Parthenon and the National Archaeological Museum. The focus of the day will be to spend time at these treasures and to highlight their historical links with geological processes. An interesting aspect of the Acropolis, for example, is that the citadel is built on top of a limestone hill which is not where the limestone formed. The stronger limestone that defines the hill has, surprisingly, been transported ~120km by geological processes from where it originated.

Overnight in Athens. Free evening.

Today the tour will travel west from Athens to the Perachora peninsula at the eastern end of the Gulf of Corinth and visit the Heraion archaeological site. This is a 9th century BCE sanctuary to the goddess Hera that is now recognised as a fascinating example of the influence of plate tectonics, continental movement and geological faulting on landscapes and local history. All of Greece has moved slowly to the southwest because Africa is pushing north, and the resulting earthquakes, faults and uplift around the Gulf of Corinth Rift have controlled the landscape evolution and the sites selected for temples and cities.

The Hera sanctuary also illustrates the intriguing links between the ancient Greek Oracles, earthquakes and the location of springs, which were so important to early cultures. The tour will investigate why fault activity may have dried up the springs and stopped the Greeks from visiting the sites that the local Oracles depended on.

After lunch at Lake Vouliagmeni the tour will visit the nearby active Pisia Fault, where a spectacular fault surface exposes evidence of recent earthquake movements.

The rest of the afternoon will be spent in Corinth, once one of the largest and most important cities in Greece, and will focus on the spectacular temples to Apollo and Poseidon. There will be time for a guided visit to the local Museum to discover more about Corinth during Greek, Roman and Byzantine times.

The day finishes with a short drive to the main accommodation base for the tour, in Xylokastron, on the southern shore of the Gulf of Corinth.

Overnight in Xylokastron. Group dinner.

The day starts with a drive up into the mountains on the south side of the Gulf of Corinth to Kalavryta, the southern margin of the Corinth Rift System. Wonderful views of the rift reveal insights into how tectonics has allowed a horizontal extension of the crust here, estimated at 6km to 11km. This area is also perfect to reveal how geologists ‘read the rocks’ to uncover the existence of ancient lakes, once occupying the Gulf of Corinth, and even how fragments in local ash layers can be traced back to distant volcanoes!

Lunch will be in Kalavryta (760m), in the Chelmos – Vouraikos Geopark, below the slopes of Mount Helmos (2355m) and close to the Waters of Styx, the fabled river entrance to Hades.

In the afternoon the tour returns north back to the coast. Stops will illustrate how kilometre-scale fault blocks along the rift control the developing drainage system to produce the present dramatic landscapes of the Dhoumena area. The day will conclude with a visit to the ancient Mega Spelio Monastery, founded in 362 CE used by early Christian hermits and the site of a World War Two massacre.

Overnight in Xylokastron. Free evening.

This morning the tour visits the mountains, scenery and ancient cities on the south of the Gulf of Corinth. The area illustrates how rifts form during crustal stretching and records the birth, growth and death of a major fault zone, the Mamoussia-Pirgaki Fault. The tour will assess how geological faulting impacts the evolution of landscapes and drainage that can help or hinder cultural development.

After lunch at Eleonas the tour continues with spectacular views of the local landscapes and a visit to the remote village of Mamoussia, which was close to the location of the ancient city of Boura, destroyed by an earthquake in 373 BCE. Evidence for the rebuilding of the city as well as the displacement of the ancient polis of Eliki provides another fascinating example of how geology, earthquakes and quake-related floods can impact on human activities and settlement.

The day will end with a visit to the Selinountas winery for some wine-tasting and a discussion on how geology influences the wine production and, some argue, the taste.

Overnight in Xylokastron. Free evening.

The tour starts with a visit to the famous ancient city of Mycenae where a number of intriguing geological interactions with early Greek culture are apparent. The tour will review the advantages and disadvantages of cities being close to active faults such as access to springs vs. the risk of earthquake and will assess the evidence that earthquakes contributed to or caused the end of Homeric Greek civilisation.

The tour will have lunch at the Isthmia Taverna overlooking the Corinth Canal.

A canal through the isthmus was first proposed in the 7th century BC and finally constructed between 1882 and 1893. The tour will walk along the northeast bank of the canal to observe how the walls have responded to the wakes of shipping, earthquakes and sea-level changes over years.

At the end of the day the tour will travel back to Athens.

Overnight in Athens. Final group dinner.

Participants are free to return home or to continue exploring Athens and Greece.

Note: this provisional itinerary is subject to change as specific locations and accommodations release more information regarding access for the coming year.