General, Research, Technology

What happens if something falls into the mouth of a volcano?

Some films have moments where someonefalls into the mouth of the volcano and dies. For example, there is such a scene in The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. At the end of the film, the character Gollum falls into the seething lava of the volcano and drowns in it, as if in water. Geophysicist Erik Klemetti was once asked if a human or animal body that fell into lava really behaves this way, or is it all fiction of the filmmakers? It turned out that when falling into the mouth of a volcano, almost any object remains at the top and is exposed to high temperatures. And there are many reasons for this, which were revealed in detail by an expert on volcanic eruptions.

Shot from the movie Terminator 2: Judgment Day

Interesting fact: Tailless toads of the species Ingerophrynus gollum were named after Gollum in 2011.

Falling into lava

About how objects behave when falling into the mouthvolcano, was reported in Wired. According to Eric Clemetti, falling into lava and falling into a lake are not the same thing. And the point is not that the lava is hot. First of all, volcanic lava is a mass that is three times denser than water. Plus, lava is thousands of times more viscous than water. Therefore, it cannot deform so much that an object that fell on it immediately drowned in it. So, the object that fell into the lava will remain on its surface. If this is a person and an animal, when they hit the dense surface of the lava, they will most likely get bone fractures.

Volcano mouth

Then the object falling into the lava will begin to be exposedhigh temperatures. According to the calculations of scientists, the temperature of lava ranges from 1000 to 1200 degrees Celsius. That is, in the mouth of a volcano about 4 times hotter than inside a home oven. Yes, you will not wish even the most bitter enemy to find yourself in such conditions. Almost any object starts to burn, and iron can begin to melt - the melting point of iron is about 1500 degrees Celsius. So, after falling into lava, objects will definitely ignite.

See also: Who lives on top of the world's tallest active volcano?

Clearly what happens to solid objectsin the mouth of a volcano, explorer Richard Rosko has shown well. In one of his videos, he threw a sack of organic waste weighing about 30 kilograms into the mouth of the Ethiopian Ertale volcano. Falling into a dense layer of lava from a height of about 80 meters, the bag formed a hole and began to burn under the influence of hot temperatures. Vapors appear to have formed during the burning, because lava began to spill out from the edges of the hole like a fountain.

Tragic footage of the Solfatara volcano

Volcanic eruptions

And it's scary to think what horrors people go throughwhen volcanoes erupt. At the moment, there are about 1,500 active volcanoes on our planet, and several dozen of them erupt almost every year. The worst of these events is considered the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD. Under the hot lava were such Roman cities as Pompeii, Stabiae and Herculaneum. As a result of this catastrophe, about 2,000 people died, which was a lot at that time. Still, before the population of our planet was not as large as it is now. In 1748, archaeologists discovered that the city of Pompeii was well preserved under the ashes and has been extensively excavated since then. Sometimes scientists manage to find very interesting artifacts.

Read also: The largest volcanic eruptions in human history

To prevent such disasters from happening again,scientists are trying to predict volcanic eruptions. At the moment, earthquakes, swelling on the surface of the volcano and a large concentration of sulfur dioxide indicate an imminent eruption. But in the near future, researchers want to predict eruptions using unmanned aerial vehicles. You can read about how this will work in this article.