The collapse of the Minoans is one of those funny little events where we discover that history is rather more complex than what we would sometimes want it to be. By the mid twentieth century or so scholarship was well aware of both the collapse of Minoan civilization and the Thera eruption, and linking the two was quite irresistible. After all, how could it not be? The Minoans were, after all, the classic "thessalocracy", depending on their maritime ability for power projection, so a volcanic eruption, and the famine and tsunamis that accompanied it, must have been quite devastating. The theory is so convincing and neat that it survives to this day outside of archaeological circles, and tends to be one of those cases people point to when showing that environmental factors determine the course of civilization.

In reality, a bit of digging has shown quite the opposite. There is a famous archaeological site on the island of Santorini called Akrotiri, and it is frequently styled as the "Bronze Age Pompeii". This is a city with close connections to Crete--as of yet not entirely understood--that was buried by the famous Thera eruption. This gives us a fairly clear dating for the volcano that seemingly destroyed Minoan civilization but, as it turns out, the Cretan material found at the site is characteristic of the period a couple centuries before the Minoan collapse. This means that the volcano erupted, and after a few centuries Minoan palace complexes collapsed--or, to put it in other words, the chronology argues pretty strongly against causality. This is not to say that nobody has managed to maintain a link between the two, but it raises the question quite strongly about whether we should, and for myself and I feel quite a few other archaeologists a volcanic explanation of Minoan collapse does not seem particularly compelling. A political order that is well maintained can survive the loss of a fleet or a bad harvest or two, and while there was no doubt a great deal of localized suffering and difficulties, it seems as though the Minoans were able to find their feet again. As much as we may find it convenient to draw a simple line between a volcanic eruption and a cultural collapse, the facts on the ground don't really permit it. The reason for the collapse of Minoan palace complexes more likely lies within the culture itself, and simple answers are not likely to come forward.

This particular line of reasoning cane be found in most archaeological surveys of Greece, such as James Whitley's The Archaeology of Ancient Greece, and the recent The Complete Archaeology of Greece by J.L. Bintliff. For something more specific, I believe Christos Doumas' Thera: Pompeii of the Ancient Aegean is still the standard primary reference.

The Minoans saw a series of catastrophes that were increasingly damaging to their society rather than just one larger event that annihilated everything - although there was one that was so destructive it was a major blow from which they probably couldn't have recovered easily (the infamous Thera eruption).

So, questions about the origin of the Minoan culture aside, around 5000BP (Before Present; forgive the different timescale) there was a large burst of development (though by some estimations they were there since 6000BP) where you saw bronze being imported from the mainland, and after c3880BP you'd see monuments, temples, etc. being constructed. Fastforward a few thousand years later and you see the city of Knossos with a population of at least 20k people, and they were specialised in their labour to a very high degree, and the palace in Knossos was the focus of their civilization broadly. The Old Palatial Period didn't last though, probably because of the aforementioned catastrophes.

Earthquakes around 1700BCE completely annihilated the old palaces. This was probably the first step in causing significant problems for the Minoans. Although, they recovered. The annihilation of palaces here was so complete that the following reconstructed palaces were actually built according to entirely new plans! They still managed to recover and produced very high quality art, architecture, and most importantly, Minoan pottery with the famous examples like the Harvester Vase of Haga Triada. So these earthquakes weren't a long-term problem for the Minoans at all. I've heard estimates before (like from Kenneth Feder at numerous points) that Knossos reached a population of 100k people at its peak, for example.

The thing is, it didn't really last. There were even more problems to come. So, just north of Crete is an island called Santorini, but it's better known by the name the Minoans called it - Thera. Exactly when Thera erupted is a little controversial as it has been traditionally dated around 1500BCE, but very recent evidence suggests a date somewhere between 1627-1570BCE. Either way, this was one hell of an eruption. You've heard about Krakatoa, right? Well, this surpassed even that. The Thera eruption is likely to have been the largest explosion in the post-glacial period, and the eruption caused such widespread annihilation on Crete that virtually every single site on the eastern, southern and central regions of the island was completely destroyed. Even towns and settlements on offshore islands were destroyed. Knossos survived the eruption, but it was covered in ash (although not as much as we first thought), so agriculture would have been difficult for a while (to say the least, given wider logistical and socio-political disruptions).

Note though that there were actually some sites that came after the Thera eruption and tsunami, so even with this catastrophe, it didn't seem to be enough to completely wipe out the Minoans. It's more likely that the the final blow to Minos was the arrival of the Mycenaeans not all that long after the eruption (50-100 years or so), so probably they were in the midst of a socio-political crisis & breakdown after the eruption, making it easy for the Mycenaeans to invade. Also please note that while the Mycenaeans appear to have burnt much of what remained when they invaded, they also appear to have assimilated and made use of Minoan culture & social structures. As Joseph Tainter in his Collapse of complex societies notes there's usually a range of factors that can contribute to a collapse of a civilization. In the case the Minoans, we can say with reasonable clarity that it was a combination of environmental (volcanic eruption, tsunami), cultural (internal socio-political conflict) and external factors (invasion).

Hope that helps!