🔥 Magma or lava – what’s the difference? 🌋 They’re often used interchangeably, but they’re not the same. Magma is below the surface, lava is above the surface. ❤️‍🔥 Magma is molten rock beneath the Earth’s surface, rich in dissolved volcanic gases. It’s trapped underground, building pressure, heat, and power deep within the planet. 🌋 Lava is what magma becomes the moment it breaks through Earth’s surface during a volcanic eruption. The volcanic gasses release into the atmosphere and what’s l

When molten rock is inside the earth, it’s called magma, but as soon as it erupts from a volcanic vent, it becomes lava. Lavas like basalt can flow like a red-hot river, while dacite and rhyolite lavas can ooze slowly out of the volcano to form a lava dome. Some lavas can flow faster than a person can run, but normally lava travels slowly enough for people to move out of its way. Everything in the path of an advancing flow can be knocked over, surrounded, burned or buried. Scientists are able to