When lava meets water, the results are often explosive. Scientists want to better understand these violent reactions to help prepare communities near volcanoes and bodies of water or groundwater. Instead, a team of researchers recently brewed their own backyard lava. “We are not just crazy people mixing and seeing what happens,” said Ingo Sonder, a volcanologist at the University at Buffalo. “We are scientists and we want to quantify, and we do have an idea of what we are doing here.”

Source: New York Times January 08, 2019 07:30 UTC