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View compareEruption Types Training Center: Runny vs Sticky Lava
Ari Raider's Training Materials · Lava Safari · Training Center 5 of 6
Eruption Types: Runny vs Sticky
Magma Mountain is loaded, the crater is glowing, and which way to run depends on one question: is the lava inside it runny or sticky?
What you're training for
At Magma Mountain, the ground is bulging and ash is drifting off the top. Knowing whether the mountain will flow or blast — by sorting what each kind of lava does — is what saves the team. Train here first; prove it in the simulation.
The science
- Runny lava flows a long way, lets its gas escape gently, and builds broad, low shield volcanoes — the Hawaiian kind.
- Sticky lava traps its gas, plugs the pipe, and the pressure eventually blasts it out as ash — the steep, explosive kind, like Mount St. Helens.
- The shape of a volcano is its history: gentle slopes mean flows; a steep cone means layers of ash and blast.
- Thick lava isn't "stronger" — it's simply holding its fizz until it can't.
Teach it today — no prep
The pour race. Tilt a tray and pour water down one side, honey down the other. Which travels farther? Which piles up? Then show photos of a shield volcano and a steep cone and let students match each mountain to its "lava" — they'll have discovered the whole classification themselves.
Trained and ready? Prove it at Stop 5 — Magma Mountain. Free, no logins, progress saved on the device.
Enter the Realm at Stop 5Resources in this training center
Worksheets, reading passages, flashcards and printables for this lesson are being added — new resources land here first. Get one email a month when they do, or browse the whole free library.
The hands-on half: the Lava Safari Adventure Kit puts six real specimens, six Digs, six Gemlings and the Realm map in your students' hands — $19.99, or $15 a student for classrooms.
More Lava Safari training
Basalt Columns · Magma vs Lava · Cooling Speed · Volcanic Gases · Eruption Types · Why Lava Glows · Enter the Adventure →