Lava is a molten rocky material, thrown by volcanoes in their eruptions, which slides across the earth's surface in the form of rivers, more or less distance from the crater. Lava takes the name of magma when it is found inside the Earth but once it is expelled and solidified, it is known as volcanic rock. That rises through the earth's crust and reaches the surface.
Atmospheric pressure causes lava to lose the gases it contained inside the Earth. When it begins to travel the earth's surface in the form of a stream, it reaches a temperature that ranges between 700ºC and 1,200ºC. And its Viscosity is very high, although, as it travels through the surface, this magma expelled by the volcano loses temperature and begins to solidify.
As it cools, it forms rocks derived from the family “ igneous rocks ”. In the case of slow cooling under the earth's surface, rocks with large crystals known as intrusive or plutonic rocks are formed. Now, if the opposite happens, that is, the cooling occurs quickly under the earth's surface, rocks with invisible crystals called volcanic or extortionate rocks originate, example of igneous rocks: granite, basalt, porphyry, among others.
Generally, volcanoes tend to develop at the extremes between the Earth's tectonic plates, most of these are located within the Ring of Fire along the edges of the Pacific Ocean.
The term lava is of Italian origin and derives from the Latin “labes” which means “fall, decline”. The term under study was first used by the Italian physician, physicist, geologist, philosopher and writer Francesco Serao to indicate the expulsion of magma in the eruption of Vesuvius.
In some volcanoes in the world there are lava lakes, that is, permanent formations of molten lava in a crater or depression.
Other concepts related to eruptions and volcanic activity are lava flow (the mantle of magma emitted during a volcanic eruption) and lava (from tunnels formed within a lava flow).
Lava usually goes into action when volcanic eruption occurs; that is, the violent emission on the earth's surface of matter coming from the interior of the volcano.
