Is there any environment that won’t automatically kill me before we even talk about falling into the lava?Īctually, yes. So you definitely wouldn’t be able to shimmy along the wall or fling yourself onto, say, a metal spaceship. That means when the metal heats up, those electrons vibrate quickly, passing energy in the form of heat throughout the entire metal-or into any unlucky fingertips that touch it. But metals are really good heat conductors, because some of the electrons inside can move freely. Walls made of those materials would stay intact. Some metals-like steel, platinum, or titanium-have melting points that exceed 1,500 degrees Celsius. We see where you’re going with this, and you might be safer. At around 550 degrees Celsius, they’d ignite immediately. Each of those substances would melt if temperatures reached 300 degrees Celsius. Even felsic lava could ignite obstacles made of wood, plastic, rubber, or similar materials. Any type of lava would be hot enough to combust standard walls made of wood, which immediately bursts into flames at around 373 degrees Celsius. That sounds like it would easily melt the rooms in Floor Is Lava. But the coolest (felsic) lavas are still around 800 degrees Celsius. Cooler lavas pack less iron and magnesium, so they aren’t hot enough to melt those elements in the surrounding rock. Basaltic lava, for example, can reach up to 1,200 degrees Celsius because it contains lots of iron and magnesium, which melt at higher temperatures. That depends on the composition of the rock it comes from. The result is a super hot, thick, mostly liquid substance with tiny shards of rock and glass throughout. But because different minerals melt at different temperatures, some of the rocks stay solid. Earth’s core can get so hot-we’re talking as high as 6,000 degrees Celsius-that it melts rocks and minerals in the Upper Mantle, the layer about 30 to 60 miles below ground. Why Fire Is the Greatest Tool of All Timeīasically, it’s partially liquid rock.

The floor is lava ivan