With care and proper clothing, however, these flows can be observed and even sampled from the side at a distance of a few feet. C.R. Chapman tells of two volcanologists walking beside a lava flow during a long hike to the source vent. They had been carrying a frozen pizza with them for a snack. When they grew hungry, they decided to cook the pizza on the solid, but hot crust forming at the edge of the lava flow. Because wading through liquid rock is not recommended, they went on, hunger unsatisfied.
Some flows are very slow, and even the fastest flows eventually cool, slow, and stop.
By noon, the flow had appeared to stop, and the volcanologist decided to have lunch on the top of the flow. There is no universally accepted scale, comparable to the Richter Scale for earthquakes, for classifying the sizes of volcanic eruptions. However, one useful comparison is the volume of new volcanic rock blasted out by an eruption. Am., August, pp. All rights reserved.