The Beverage Bottle Analogy


Have you ever slowly opened a bottle that contains a carbonated beverage and watched the gas bubbles form on the walls of the bottle? Then as the seal on the bottle is broken, the bubbles grow larger and a hiss of gas escapes from the bottle, followed by a rush of foam. The depressurization and the escape of gas from a beverage is the same process that occurs when magma is depressurized as it emerges from a volcanic vent. The foam is equivalent to what will become scoria on solidification.

Stromboli ejecta
Stromboli ejecta: Magma being blown from the vent at Stromboli Volcano. This type of eruption would produce the small scoria cinders known as “lapilli.”

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