Red-Hot ‘Lava Bomb’ Careening Down Volcanic Slope Looks Like It Came Straight From Hell

Boulders rolling down mountains at excessive velocity are a daunting sight—and much more scary once they’re nonetheless glowing with volcanic warmth.

Geochemist Harri Geiger from Albert-Ludwigs University in Germany is at present investigating the ongoing eruptions at Cumbre Vieja volcano on La Palma island in Spain. The volcano began to erupt on September 19, and it doesn’t appear to be focused on stopping any time quickly. Geiger is a part of a world analysis group coordinated by Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. He and his colleagues have been sampling latest ash within the volcano’s exclusion zone when the boulder made its dramatic look.

On October 27, as Geiger stood roughly 0.6 miles (1 kilometer) from the volcanic vent, he captured extraordinary video of a spallation lava bomb dashing down the slope. In an e-mail, Geiger stated he estimated that the lava bomb measured roughly 3 ft vast (1 meter) and weighed round half a ton.

The scientists approached the boulder as soon as it stopped rolling, and so they may really feel the warmth coming off it. Geiger stated it was “still incandescent” and packing scorching temperatures in extra of 1,650 levels Fahrenheit (900 levels Celsius). Definitely a no-touch state of affairs.

Spallation lava bombs, as you might have guessed, are ejected rocks produced by erupting volcanoes, and so they’re fairly harmful. In 2018, a basketball-sized lava bomb smashed right into a tour boat off the coast of Hawaii, injuring almost two-dozen folks and sending 4 to hospital.

Thankfully, nobody was harm by this explicit lava bomb in La Palma, however I requested Geiger if he was nervous about his security. “No, we were at a safe distance, and we’ve seen other lava bombs before—we’re on the lookout at all times,” he replied. Naturally, Geiger noticed this as a studying expertise. “Seeing a ‘live’ bomb is a rare occasion, we can learn about ejection speed, trajectories, traveling distance, and general formation of spallation lava bombs,” he added.

Writing within the Landslide Blog, geologist Dave Petley from the University of Sheffield said the incident demonstrates the startling mobility of rolling boulders. “As the video shows, this was a boulder that was roughly spherical, and it was moving on a surface essentially devoid of obstructions and that had, until late in the sequence, a steady slope,” Petley wrote. “The resultant video is a remarkable record of the extreme mobility in these situations.”

For positive—had anybody been unlucky sufficient to cross paths with this lava bomb whereas it was nonetheless rolling, it might’ve been curtains. Thankfully, Geiger and his colleagues prevented such a destiny.

Related: Nearly Two Dozen People Injured After Lava Bomb Hits Hawaii Tour Boat.