If you put your hand in activly flowing lava, will your hand just burn, burn
off completely, or will you die from severe burning?
Jennifer
Dear Jennifer,
I'm not exactly sure why anyone would WANT to put his or her hand into
lava, are you? If it happened by accident you would get badly burned but
your hand wouldn't just melt off. A geologist at the Hawaiian Volcano
Observatory fell into some lava up to his knees about 11 years ago. He
was wearing boots and long pants, and luckily there was someone to pull
him out immediately. He had mostly second-degree burns - which were very
painful of course and he spent the whole summer in the hospital - but he
was back at work in 5 months. It is a very scary thing to think about,
even after all these years.
Scott Rowland, University of Hawaii
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