Oh, volcanoes, you deliciously deadly things. There are so many ways that these mountains of fire can kill you – pyroclastic flow, superfast mud flows, ash fallout, lava bombs, you name it. They’re creative, indiscriminate and not to be messed with.
Speaking of which, have you ever wondered what it’s like to take a tumble into some lava? Thanks to a mixture of scientific experiments and a few unfortunate individuals themselves, we know the answer.
As long as the lava flow is suitably thick, you die as you sink into the molten rock and the heat overwhelms your organs. If they haven’t shut down due to stress, then the lava will pour in and physically eat away at them. Fascinatingly, there is a lot more nuance to it than that, but those are the basics.
Firstly, it’s worth pointing out that there are various varieties of lava. Some are hotter, others are cooler, and some are stickier. The lava’s properties will determine how fast or slow your untimely demise will be.
Generally speaking, most lava is around 1,000°C (1,832°F), and it’s incredibly sticky, or “viscous”. It’s more like a very gloopy oil than water, so when you fall into it, it’ll stick to you like glue. As the average lava is 3-4 times as dense as you, you’ll sink slowly too; in fact, you might just float atop its surface depending on how much you struggle.
So, upon hopping in for your deadly bath, you’ll get stuck at the surface as the lava begins to give you full thickness burns. This injury is the type that not only destroys the upper layer of your skin (epidermis), but quickly destroys your nerve endings and severs your blood vessels within your underlying dermis. Your subcutaneous fat will also boil off, so in effect, you’ll be seared like a beef steak.
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