Expedition 398 summary

The objectives of International Ocean Discovery Program Expedition 398, Hellenic Arc Volcanic Field (11 December 2022 to 10 February 2023), were to study the volcanic record of the central Hellenic island arc; document the links and feedbacks between volcanism/magmatism, crustal tectonics, and sea level; investigate the processes and products of shallow submarine eruptions of silicic magma; and groundtruth the seismic stratigraphy of Santorini caldera.Reconstructing the subsidence history of the southern Aegean Sea and searching for deep life inside and outside of Santorini caldera were additional objectives.During the expedition, 10 primary and alternate sites that were originally proposed were drilled, in addition to 2 extra sites that were requested during the expedition.Outside of Santorini caldera, drilling penetrated the thick basin fills of the crustal rift system hosting the Christiana-Santorini-Kolumbo volcanic field, identifying numerous pumice and ash layers, some known from on land and others hitherto unknown, pushing back the onset of volcanism in the area into the Early Pleistocene or even Pliocene.Significant events of mass wasting into the basins, accompanied by very high sedimentation rates, were also documented.These basin sites served to groundtruth the seismic stratigraphy of the basins and open the way to unraveling relationships between volcanic activity and crustal rift pulses.Two sites of condensed sequences served to sample many volcanic layers within the detailed age-depth constraints provided mainly by biostratigraphy, as diagenetic effects complicated the magnetic reversal record significantly.Drilling penetrated the Alpine basement at three basin sites northeast of Santorini, whereas in the Christiana Basin to the southwest it penetrated a thick sequence of Messinian evaporites.Drilling inside Santorini caldera penetrated to ~120 meters below seafloor, less than planned due to hole instability issues but deep enough to groundtruth the seismic stratigraphy and sample the different layers.One intracaldera hole yielded a detailed tephra record of the history of the Kameni Islands, as well as possible evidence for deep bacterial colonies within the caldera.Despite variable recovery in the unstable pumice and ash deposits, the expedition was a significant success that may address almost all the scientific objectives once the laboratory work has been done. Plain language summaryAbout 800 million people are threatened by volcanic eruptions around the globe: high plumes of ash, ground-hugging flows of hot ash and rock, earthquakes, and associated tsunamis.The Christiana-Santorini-Kolumbo volcanic group in the Aegean Sea of Greece is particularly hazardous because the volcanoes have produced many eruptions in the past, and some were highly explo-