Lava lab could help prepare for eruption
Golden syrup might be a good replacement but there’s no substitute for the real thing.
And when it comes to lava research, it’s best to be authentic.
University of Canterbury researchers have been heating small chunks of volcanic rock until they melt – at 1350 degrees Celsius – and studying how the glowing molten rock moves and behaves to enable modelling of real lava flows.
Geological sciences department associate professor and volcanologist Ben Kennedy said the new Lava Laboratory in the school of fine arts provided more meaningful results than those that had come from studying golden syrup.
‘‘Lava is a bit more complicated. Syrup behaves much more predictably and has a very consistent viscosity. Lava when it cools grows crystals inside.’’
The university cleaners will also be pleased lava has replaced syrup.
Geology master of science student Dale Cusack had been using syrup as an analogue fluid, calculating its movement and other properties by studying it from above it.
‘‘I am keen to leave behind the golden syrup that is insanely sticky and I’m sure the geology building caretakers hate me for tramping it all through the building.’’
Kennedy said researchers from the United States Geological Survey and a team of French Volcanologist Ben Kennedy
engineers and mathematicians were excited about what the lava lab offered.
The kind of lava being made was akin to the highly fluid ‘‘pahoehoe’’ basalts erupting in Hawaii and that had built up the landscape around Auckland and parts of the central North Island.
‘‘They are very interested in this idea of being able to look down and see and measure the lava from above. The middle of the lava flow moves the fastest and you can use this to calculate the viscosity.
‘‘If you are in Hawaii, with lava flowing out of the vent, you could then say, this flow coming out at this speed and with this stickiness is basically going to go here and over here.’’
The results could help prepare for future lava flows across Auckland. For the lava pour, the researchers used red scoria basalt sold in bags at garden centres for landscaping, Kennedy said.
‘‘That is from local New Zealand volcanoes. It was lava once, and we’re returning it to lava.’’
A ceramic crucible over a furnace was then used to melt the small rocks. Experiments over two years had shown the optimum temperature for making the lava was about 1350C.
The lava began solidifying into basalt rock as soon as it was poured from the crucible down an angled piece of steel. Within a few hours, the outside of the rock was cool enough to touch, he said.
The lab builds on earlier work developing a ‘‘magma brewer’’ to study the behaviour of molten rock below ground.
‘‘It was lava once, and we’re returning it to lava.’’