Common sense would lead you to believe that ice would melt if you pour molten lava directly onto it. However nature can be wildly unpredictable, and if you came to that conclusion you would only be partially right.
Thanks to geology professor Jeff Karson and art professor Bob Wysocki from Syracuse University, we now know that the ice does melt, but due to the extremely high temperatures, it is turned directly into steam. As the lava oozes across the sheet of ice, it darkens and starts to look like bubbling tar.
According to Alistair Linsell, a nuclear chemist and science presenter with the Science Channel, the extreme heat of the lava is what causes the strange formations to form when it hits the ice.
‘The formation of all of this steam helps the lava to flow. It is sitting on top of a blanket of steam rather than the ice itself, this means the friction between the lava and the ice surface is very low. As the lava cools we start to get a thick black layer forming on top and that starts to trap those bubbles of superheated steam inside the rock.”
It might not be what you expected to see, but it was definitely more entertaining to watch this instead of a video of ice melting. What did you think was going to happen? Share with us in the comments.
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Lava vs Ice: Find Out What Happens When Lava is Poured On Ice is a post from: LifeDaily