Som Hawaiis Kīlauea-vulkancontinues to spew out molten rock, the U.S. Geological Survey continues to broadcastincredibly scary photos and videoslava spewing into the air and taking over the land. The lava is red hot, glows bright orange and has the power to engulf anything in its path. So what would happen if you touched it?
The lava comes from Kilaueathere is more than 2100 degrees Fahrenheit(about 1,170 degrees Celsius). “It's much hotter than anything you would get in your stove at home,” saysErik Klemetti, assistant professor of earth sciences at Denison University. Dipping your hand in molten rock won't kill you instantly, but it will leave you with severe, painful burns — "the kind that destroys nerve endings and boils subcutaneous fat," saysDavid Damby, a research chemist at the USGS Volcano Science Center, in an email toEdges.
Falling into lava is a different story
Falling into lava is a different story. The extreme heat would likely burn your lungs and cause your organs to fail. “The water inside the body would probably boil to steam, while the lava melts the body from the outside in,” says Damby. (Don't worry, the volcanic gases would probably knock you out.) But unlike one of the characters inVideo from 1997VolcanoofGolem inLord of the Rings, you wouldn't sink and float in the lava like the Wicked Witch of the West, says Klemetti,who wrote about these scenes in 2011The cablearticle. Lava may look like a liquid, but it's not like water: it's too sticky and viscous. "So you would be sitting on top of the lava flow," saysJanine Krippner, a volcanologist at Concord University.
The thickness of the lava is the same reason volcanologists who want to take samples don't use buckets. Instead, they dip rock hammers into the molten rock and extract molten magma for testing. “It's not like going to a stream and putting a bucket in the water,” Klemetti says. "The bucket would just sit on top of the lava flow." In fact, the lava quickly solidifies and forms a black crust on top that is quite sturdy – sturdy enough, for example, to support the weight of this man running against a lava flow on Mount Etna in Italy. (But don't try this yourself.)
That crust is crispy too. Most lava-related injuries occur when people walk on cooled lava and scrape themselves, Damby says. That's what happened to Krippner about a decade ago when she was doing fieldwork on a volcano in New Zealand. She stepped on a loose piece of hardened lava that rolled under her feet, causing her to fall over the sharp rocks. “It wasn't a violent cut. It healed, but I had a slight bump in my leg,” she says.
Lava is scary, but not the most dangerous thing during an eruption. Lava usually flows quite slowly, so you have time to move away from it "quickly," says Damby. (However, in 1977, rapid lava from the Nyiragongo volcano in the Democratic Republic of Congoalmost 300 people killedas it passed over nearby villages.) The real danger comes fromvolcanic mudflows, also called lahars, says Krippner. These are essentially landslides of volcanic material and debris that have the consistency of concrete and can flow down a volcano at speeds of more than 200 km/h. In 1985, a lahar caused by the Nevado del Ruiz volcano in Colombia flooded an entire city.25,000 people killed. “In most cases you can't avoid them,” says Krippner.
"a deadly combination of heat, noxious gas and shock"
Then there ispyroclastic flows, which are the apocalyptic clouds of gases, rocks and other volcanic debris that travel at speeds of more than 50 mph (80 km/h) and at temperatures between 390 and 1,300 degrees Fahrenheit (200 to 700 degrees Celsius). If you find yourself in a pyroclastic flow, like the people of Pompeii in 79 AD. - you are likely to suffocate or be crushed by a flying boulder (like this poor man in Pompeii). “They are a deadly combination of heat, noxious gas and shock,” says Damby.
Although lava flows are not that dangerous, they should still be taken seriously. In Hawaii, lava from the Kilauea volcanic eruption has destroyed at least 82 homes.according toReuters. No one died, but "one man's leg was crushed when he was hit by a splash of super-dense lava,"Reutersrapport.
So stay away from the lava and do not touch it. Don't roast marshmallows on it either,says the USGS. But you can admire how incredibly fascinating lava is. “We think of rock as very permanent, but here is molten rock coming out of the ground,” says Klemetti. "It's hard not to be fascinated by the idea that there are processes happening somewhere underground that could melt the Earth's interior and spew it out to the surface."
