Abby Tang: This is lava.

And this is also lava.

One's man-made,

and one's, well, coughed up by Mother Earth.

But both these scientists are working toward

the exact same goal:

figuring out how to predict the unpredictable.

Arianna Soldati: To be able to make the best decisions

about how to keep people safe,

it's important to be able to predict

what is lava going to do

once it starts flowing out of the vent.

Abby: One-tenth of the world's population

lives within the danger zone of a lava flow,

which means knowing how lava works

and reacts to elements like water, metal, and ice is key.

So on this episode of "Science Skills,"

we're going to look at two ways scientists study lava,

starting with DIY.

This huge furnace behind me

is Syracuse University's personal volcano

and brainchild of an unlikely scientist and artist duo.

That's professors Jeff Karson and Bob Wysocki,

and they didn't feel like waiting

for a volcano to spit up lava.

So they decided to make their own.

Jeff: The project originated really

when Bob came into my office

and said he wanted to make lava.

I thought that was a pretty crazy suggestion at that time.

But the more we talked,

the more we saw that he had

a really good idea of what needed to be done.

Abby: And the first thing that needed to be done?

Figure out what to make the lava in,

which is where this came in.

The tilt furnace is really the statement piece

of the whole operation.

It can hold hundreds of kilos of lava

and execute experiments about viscosity,

morphology, structures, and formations.

But she's a little bit finicky

when it comes to lava-making.

The furnace literally melts itself

and tears itself apart over a very short period of time.

Abby: These were originally made

to melt bronze and aluminum,

but the Lava Project has repurposed one of them

to melt up to 800 pounds of billion-year-old basaltic rock

shipped all the way from Wisconsin.

The process takes hours.

Bob and his team pile the rocks

into a receptacle called the Crucible,

turn up the furnace,

and gradually bring the rocks up to temperature.

If we were doing just lava and melting stuff,

the furnace would be on about medium

and we would just never turn it down or up.

What temperature is medium?

Medium is a sound out there that I hear in the flame.

I can adjust the furnace blindfolded

and tell you what it's doing, and it's all sound.

There's just a butterfly valve in here, and --

[furnace rumbling]

Abby: Oh, you can hear it. Bob: That's it.

Abby: We looked this up later.

Medium is also somewhere between

2,000 and 2,400 degrees Fahrenheit.

So pretty darn hot.

Which means these scientists really have to suit up.

These suits made of aluminum can withstand radiant heat

up to 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

Bob: We used to wear welding leathers,

but it dries out from the heat.

When you start to smell barbecue, 'cause it's pigskin,

you knew that you were too close to something,

'cause you're cooking. Your clothing is cooking.

How do you know you're too close with these guys?

Bob: You don't. Abby: You don't?

Bob: These are the spats.

The apron, which I wear around my waist.

The jacket,

which, put your arms out.

Right, because you don't need it in the back.

Abby: No. It's like campfire style.

Bob: Exactly. And it's just that.

Abby: Back half of me is cool, front's warm.

Bob: So there's that.

And then the helmet,

it looks like it's a regular tinted thing like sunglasses,

but this is 24-karat gold.

Abby: Ooh, fancy.

Bob: That is a sheet of it.

Abby: What is it about the gold?

Is it just the reflective quality?

Bob: It's so highly reflective,

and it's why you see satellites and stuff,

why they have the gold foil on.

And is this really similar to some of the stuff

that volcanologists would use in the field, right?

Same stuff.

Yeah, but maybe with a back?

Bob: They have a back on it.

Abby: Yeah, in case the volcano's behind them.

Do you want to show us how it works?

Yeah, let's go talk about this.

Do we need any of the gear?

It is sweltering! How hot is it up here?

Bob: Well, the bright yellow you see back there,

that's about 2,800 degrees Fahrenheit.

So right now the lava in there is too hot.

When we dump it out of here,

about the meter it falls from the spout to the trough

and through the trough,

we lose about 275 degrees Fahrenheit.

By the time it hits the end,

we want to be at 2,150 Fahrenheit.

And that's the magic spot for the lava.

Abby: Researchers are looking for that sweet spot

between 1,600 and 2,200 degrees,

the range for natural lava.

Knowing the lava's temperature

at what time and where is crucial.

So the team has an array of 10 digital cameras

to capture 3D images of the flow,

and a thermal camera,

which can read up to 3,600 degrees Fahrenheit.

That way, researchers like Arianna Soldati

can analyze both the lava's movement and temperature,

leading to a key piece of data.

Arianna: Viscosity is possibly

the most important property in volcanology.

It really controls everything,

from eruptive style to appearance of the flow.

And the main physical property that controls viscosity

is temperature.

The hotter something is, the less viscous it is,

and the cooler it is, the more viscous.

So it's really important that we can tell

what temperature the lava is,

because we want to match that with the viscosity.

Abby: With this, the team can study

how different variables, like metal or crystals,

affect how fast the lava cools,

and therefore its viscosity.

But there's the lab,

and then there's the real world,

where unplanned and unpredictable factors come into play.

That's where this guy comes in.

Ben Edwards: Well, this is a piece of the earth

that we call the mantle.

Abby: That's a piece of the mantle?!

Ben: This is a piece of the mantle.

And this is one of the sidelights

that make some volcanoes incredibly important to study.

Abby: This is Ben Edwards,

and he likes to get lava data straight from the source.

Here's him collecting a sample from a flow in Russia

back in 2013.

As you can see, Ben's protective gear

has more coverage than what they use at Syracuse.

Because sampling from a natural lava flow

can be a 360-degree experience.

If you're going next to a lava river to sample,

even in this suit,

like, I was doing this in Russia from a lava river

that's maybe 10, 15 meters wide.

And after being there for a minute or so

making some measurements,

I could hear my Russian colleagues saying,

"Ben, move back! You're smoking."

[laughing]

But it was getting hot enough in the suit

that even after about 30 to 45 seconds,

I had to back up.