Superheated molten rock doesn't just melt through ice, but creates beautiful and red hot air bubbles
Ever wondered what would happen if someone poured lava onto a sheet of ice?
This film gives an answer - which isn't quite what you might expect.
The video was originally published in 2012 and has now been watched by more than seven million people.
Since then, a pair of lava lovers from Syracuse University have
conducted more than 100 experiments, pouring super hot rock into water
and onto snow.
The Science Channel
caught up with sculptor Bob Wysocki, professor at the Department of
Art, and geologist Jeff Karson, professor at the Department of Earth
Sciences, to see how their lava affair was progressing.
"Our first guess about what would happen was that was that the lava
was going to explode or tunnel down through ice, melting a hole," said
Karson. "It didn't do either of those things." Mr Lava Lava: here's what happens when fire meets ice
When the superheated molten rock hits the ice it actually moves across it, creating beautiful bubbles.
"The way it looks is like scrambled eggs from hell," Karson added. "It just did things we didn't really expect."
The bubbles are blown by a process similar to glass blowing. When
lava meets ice, the frozen water turns immediately into steam, inflating
the bubbles.
This steam also keeps the lava from touching cold ice, forming a cushion which allows it to move along the frozen surface.
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