Dating the Volcanic Eruption
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Current opinion based on radiocarbon dating indicates that the eruption occurred between about 1650 and 1600 BC. These dates, however, conflict with the usual date from archaeology, which is between about 1500 BC and 1450 BC.
Some scholars believe the radiocarbon dates to be completely wrong. Some suggest re-scaling archaeological chronologies with the radiocarbon dates. Others look for a compromise between the archaeological and radiocarbon dates for best fits of both sets of data. Re-scaling archaeological chronologies is controversial, because revising the Aegean Bronze Age chronology could require, by association, revising the well-established conventional Egyptian chronology. The debate about the date continues.
It has long been hoped that information from Greenland ice cores would determine the date exactly. A large eruption, identified in ice cores and dated to 1644±20 BC years was suspected to be Santorini. Volcanic ash was retrieved from an ice core, and this was shown not to be from Santorini [3]; so the 1644 BC date is incorrect.
Tree ring data shows that a large event interfering with normal tree growth occurred in 1629-1628 BC, which may be the same event as the 1644 BC signal in the Greenland ice cores. However, no firm evidence links these two events and, while unlikely but plausible, the two signals could be separate events. At the present time no hard evidence linking or refuting the 1628 BC tree-ring date with Thera has been found.
While a VEI-4 or greater eruption can leave signals in tree rings and ice cores, the absence of such a signal does not mean the absence of an eruption. It is still hoped that Santorini ash might be found in another layer of the ice core, which would fix the date of the eruption.
Chinese records
Until 2003, the Minoan eruption of Thera was classified with Krakatau, given a VEI-6. Recent studies of ashfall have upgraded the intensity of the eruption to a VEI-7, rivaling that of 1815's Tambora eruption. The 1815 eruption was of such a large volume and kicked so much sulfur dioxide into the air that it caused 1816's Year Without a Summer. The impact of this colossal eruption on human civilizations at the time are not yet fully understood and still open to speculation. Some scientists correlate a volcanic winter from the Minoan eruption with Chinese records documenting the collapse of the Xia dynasty in China. Per the Bamboo Annals, the collapse of the dynasty and the rise of the Shang dynasty (independently approximated to 1618 BC) was accompanied by "'yellow fog, a dim sun, then three suns, frost in July, famine, and the withering of all five cereals".
Egyptian records
Oddly, there seem to be no surviving Egyptian records of the eruption. Santorini ash deposits were at one time claimed to have been found in the Nile delta, but this is now known to be a misidentification [4]. Suggestions have also been made that the eruption of Thera and volcanic fallout inspired myths of the Titanomachy in Hesiod's Theogony and calamities of the Admonitions of Ipuwer of the Middle Kingdom of Egypt.
Association with Atlantis
Starting with Spyridon Marinatos' 1939 landmark paper, this cataclysm at Santorini and its possibility to have caused the fall of the Minoan Civilization is sometimes regarded as a likely source for Plato's story of Atlantis. The cataclysm of Santorini was certainly the kind of event that could change human ideas of what the gods are capable of, if provoked.
(source: wikipedia.org)