18 thoughts on “How You Won’t Die When You Fall Into Lava”

  1. From a great distance, pushing a man into an active volcano looks a lot like trying to save him.

    Just sayin’.

  2. Also, you probably won’t die by bursting into flames instantly, since the human body is not actually that flammable. Nor will you necessarily die extremely quickly. When you fall in you will float on the surface and then be encased in a bubble of steam which will partially insulate you from the heat of the lava (the Leidenfrost effect). You may even be able to live long enough to swim to the edge of the lava and get out (such things have happened before with molten metal in foundries).

    Depending on how much time you spend in the lava you may or may not be able to recover given sufficient medical care, likely you will have 3rd degree burns over most of your body. Nevertheless, it’s quite possible you will not die until hours or days later.

        1. Wait, what? Granite is cooled magma, and lava is uncooled magma. Where’s the metamorphic come into it?
          In any case, a lifetime universal ban is a bit extreme for that pun. I’m willing to settle for a nice shrubbery.

          1. A Basalt would be a cooled magma.

            Granite is intrusive Igneous, it is formed at depth and pressure, not at the surface like a Basalt.

            It is an Igneous rock but it exhibits several traits ot metamorphism because of the depth it was formed at.

  3. . . . provided that they don’t sent molten rock through someone’s front window, through the house, and on to smother the family minivan . . .

  4. I was hoping the article would tell whether you would die from your brain boiling or having your lungs burned out or from inhaling poisonous fumes or if the Lava Children would grab you and drag you under.

  5. Reminds me of the Harvard Lampoon’s parody Bored of the Rings:

    Frito: But, couldn’t we just drop it down a storm drain, or pawn it and swallow the ticket?
    Goodgulf: Alas, it is not so easy.
    Frito: But, why?
    Goodgulf: Alas.
    Orlon: Alackaday.

  6. What happens in reality is that you break through the thin crust of hardened lava and burn the shit out of (hopefully only one) of your feet, which also hopefully have got serious leather boots on because only a stoned hippie would walk around on new lava in flip flops. This happens every so often to geologists up on Kilauea on the Big Island. I lived there for years and the eruptions were really nifty, but wandering around in the dark on new lava required a certain sort of caution, especially when wearing flip-flops, stoned, or both.

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