This article reviews the suitability of muography in identifying geological hazards in the southern Aegean active volcanic arc (SAAVA). Santorini and Nisyros, the most active members of SAAVA, exhibit critical structural failures which are controlled by the regional tectonic stress field. Comparable structural failures in other volcanic complexes (e.g. Canary Islands, Hawaii, Stromboli, etc.) are linked to high geological risk. However, the amount of hazard stemming from potential rupture of volcanoes in the Aegean Sea has not been fully assessed yet, because the volcanoes’ intricate structure challenges both conventional geological and geophysical mapping. On the other hand, muography constitutes a novel remote sensing technique which exploits the penetration of the cosmic rays in the upper solid earth to produce images of the upper solid earth at high spatial resolution. Here, the performance of muography in identifying geological hazards in the SAAVA is evaluated on the basis of available geological information and similar case studies with satisfactory results.

This study presents the first direct cosmogenic ³⁶Cl-based chronology of landscape evolution and ground deformation in the Ionian Islands, focusing on the Thinia Valley in northern Kefalonia, western Greece. At the Zola site, exposure ages indicate that the eastern limb of the associated anticline has undergone intermittent deformation since at least 34 ka, with ongoing exhumation still occurring today. Variability in erosion rates suggests a complex deformation history, with lower-elevation samples exhuming faster than those at higher elevations. The findings highlight the role of progressive landslide activity rather than a single catastrophic failure. The compression-induced asymmetry of the Zola anticline, along with regional seismicity, appears to control slope instability. The exposure ages at the SK site reveal a surface that reached steady-state long before 20 ka, with a uniform erosion rate of 47.72 ± 0.82 m·Ma⁻¹, consistent with regional estimates. Additionally, a prehistoric earthquake—dated at 4.8 ± 0.14 ka—has been identified, with a planar surface exhumed in a single slip event. These findings emphasize the tectonic mobility of the region, with deformation processes persisting since the Middle Pleistocene. The results contribute to a broader understanding of fault-controlled slope instability and have direct implications for seismic hazard assessment in actively deforming terrains.

The Pindos fold-and-thrust belt (PFTB) constitutes the backbone mountain range of Greece. Thermochronology allowed the quantification of the size of the orogenic bulge of Pindos on the NW Peloponnese prior to exhumation, as well as the estimation of the duration of gliding of the PFTB and the initiation of cooling (and exhumation). It follows that gliding along the basal detachment surface occurred at depths not exceeding 4 km. The inferred geometry of the PFTB prior to exhumation, perceived through the mechanical model of the Coulomb fracture theory, implies that the wedge of the thrust belt evolved in a sub-critical state during the gliding stage until ~15 Ma (Middle Miocene). Then cooling (and thus exhumation) overtook gliding. By 9 Ma (Late Miocene), exhumation had spread over the entire nappe which, since then, has been subject to erosion mainly.

Here we present a Monte Carlo simulation of a muographic campaign on Methana volcano, Greece. In order to estimate the absorption parameters and the pattern of muon scattering at various incident energies (GeV to TeV), a radar-derived digital terrain model (DTM) was submitted to irradiation by horizontal muons in Geant4 and the penetrating muons were collected by a hypothetical MicroMegas particle detector on the other side of the DTM. Monte Carlo simulation demonstrated that muon energies at least as high as 10 TeV are required for whole-scale radiography of Methana and one has to reduce the scale of study to smaller structures (e.g. ~ 600 m - wide volcanic domes) in order to exploit the more affluent lower energy muons (~ 600 GeV). Coulomb scattering, on the other hand, brings about deflection of muon trajectories away from the detector, resulting in loss of information. Additionally, scattering adds Gaussian blurring to the scanned objects. With the intention of improving contrast and extract objects in muographic image we recommend the use of spatial operators (filters) employed in image analysis.