Anthony Graham
The Astronomy Society had its last meeting of the spring semester Friday evening in the Campus Center, where a top scientist explained how walking on lava was not only possible, but also quite safe under the right circumstances.
“It helps if you don’t weigh very much,” Dr. Rosaly Lopes, the principle speaker of the night, cautioned any potential lava-trekkers in the room.
Lopes is the lead scientist for the Geophysics and Planetary Geosciences Group and a principle scientist on the Cassini Mission to Saturn.
The lecture covered the wide variety of volcanoes, not just on Earth, but as commonplace throughout the solar system. Different manifestations of volcanism were discussed, with special emphasis on Jupiter’s icy moon Io, which has more than 150 active volcanoes and the hottest lavas known.
“It also looks like a pepperoni pizza,” Lopes said almost affectionately, her interest in Io undoubtedly inspired by its intrigue as a research subject.
The volcanism lecture wasn’t just a multitude of heavy facts and slides jumbled together to intimidate eager college students. There were plenty of oddball bits of information sprinkled throughout the presentation to keep it fresh.
One slide depicted Lopes walking over cooled lava when it was only minutes old in Kilauea, Hawaii. In fact, Lopes stated that it is possible to stand on still-moving lava as it is cooled (the outer crust acts as a sort of insulator).
If walking on lava isn’t exciting enough, yet another slide showed a colleague of Lopes’ catching it in his hand. Sure enough, he was wearing protective gloves, but the still image of red and orange lava dripping into someone’s hand before falling into the ocean was surreal.
“He’s very nice,” Lopes said of her lava-catching colleague before pausing to add, “…but totally crazy.”
Though not as crazy as a man who scuba dived into a thermal pool at Yellowstone National Park whom Lopes mentioned. He didn’t make it back out again.
“Yellowstone, turns out, is a really dangerous area,” Lopes said.
“I didn’t know there were volcanoes in Yosemite,” said student Sergey Studley, who attended the meeting with his brother.
All the students and participants who came to the Astronomy Society’s final meeting seemed satisfied with the experience, even those who didn’t have an initial concern for the subject.
“It was pretty interesting. I didn’t expect there to be active volcanoes in icy environments. I learned a lot,” said Dexter Bendicion, another student.
Professor Carolyn Mallory, astronomy instructor and a driving force behind the Astronomy Society, was on hand to greet students and others with an enthusiastic smile, insightful mind and even a table full of baked goods and tea during a short intermission.
“Volcanoes are like the mix masters of the planet or moon they’re on, bringing stuff up that needs to come up,” Mallory said while a rock-orchestra version of the “Star Wars” theme played in the background.
The next Astronomy Society meeting won’t be until the fall semester. As always, they are the first Friday of each month, in the Pierce College Campus Center, from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m.
Interesting speakers and technology demos are sure to be included.
As well as free muffins and tea, too.