Lava

Why lava for New Year's Day?

There is something about the artificial new starting point of the New Year, the surface-altering substance and its slow molten creep that made it pop into my mind this morning as the appropriate choice for the day.

"[Poetry] is the lava of the imagination whose

eruption prevents an earthquake."

Lord Byron

English poet & satirist (1788 - 1824)

...I have always been drawn to the lovely and terrifying beauty of orange day-glo lava from
National Geographic photos, earth science documentaries or news reports.

Riddle: I am the red tongue of the Earth,
that buries cities.

Answer: Lava from a volcano.

Something about its ability to melt stone (see below) and hiss into
the sea slowly (see picture with clouds, below) and the silent and
slow-moving power are evocative.







Although I have never seen a lava flow in person, I do hope to.
My sister (a reporter/producer for the Associated Press) once
covered a story, reporting from right next to a creeping lava flow
when Mount Etna, in Sicily, erupted (see photo with man, below)

The nearest I have ever come to lava is not so near...I visited a semi-dormant volcano, Izalco, in El Salvador, Central America, in 2001. All I saw was a wisp of smoke...here it is to the left...it was still a stunning site to this New Englander.

...other than that, exposure to lava's pop culture cousin, the lava lamp (see below left), the MTV of the 80's, was my only other exposure...


Some of the basics from Wikipedia (and a chart from another site):

Lava is molten rock that a volcano expels during an eruption. Lava, when first exuded from a volcanic vent, is a liquid at very high temperature: typically from 700°C to 1200°C (1300°F to 2200°F). Although the viscosity of lava is 100,000 times that of water, the viscous rock can flow many miles before eventually cooling and solidifying.

While still below the earth's surface, the molten rock is termed magma. Solidified lava is known as igneous rock, although the term "lava flow" refers to the hardened formation. An "active lava flow" would be one having still molten rock associated with it. The word 'lava' comes from Italian, and is probably ultimately derived from the Latin word labes which means a fall, slide, or sinking in. The first time it was used in connection with extruded magma was apparently in a short account written by Francesco Serao of the eruption of Vesuvius which took place between May 14 and June 4, 1737. In this he described "a flow of fiery lava" in analogy to the flow of water and mud down the flanks of the volcano following heavy rain.

Finally, I was amazed to find this mountain, in Antarctica, Mount Erebus,
photographed here by satellite, which captures the lava from within a mountain
seemingly made of ice...

Happy New Year!

May your movements this year
be as slow and deliberate and
carefully planned as the flow of lava.