Jelle Zeilinga de Boer is an emeritus professor of geology at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut and co-author of Volcanoes in Human History together with fellow geologist Donald Theodore Sanders. Chapter three of their book is entitled ‘The Bronze Age Eruption of Thera: Destroyer of Atlantis and Minoan Crete?’ in which they add their weight to the suggestion that the Theran eruption played a part in the development of the story of Atlantis ^[681.p70].

Some of Zeilinga de Boer’s views coincide with those of William Lauritzen expressed in his recent book, The Invention of God. Haraldur Sigurdsson the volcanologist, has also suggested that volcanic eruptions, particularly Thera, have influenced the development of Greek myths such as Hesiod’s Theogony and Plato’s Atlantis!