Common sense would suggest that when molten lava meets a sheet of ice it will simply melt through . But geologist Professor Jeff Karson and artist Professor Bob Wysocki from Syracuse University in New York found that the results can be far more spectacular . Using a lava furnace to heat gravel to temperatures of more than 1,100°C ( 2,000°F ) they were able to pour it onto a slab of ice to produce a seething , bubbling mass of molten rock . Lava turns ice directly into steam which bubbles up through the molten rock to form bizarre glass bubbles . Professor Karson , who has been pouring lava in a series of experiments to better understand how it behaves and forms geological formations , described it as 'scrambled eggs from hell ' . Rather than melting straight through the ice , the lava instead flows rapidly on top of it on a cushion of steam . Steam from the ice below bubbles up through the molten rock as it tries to escape , forming a layer of glassy bubbles . Professor Karson said : 'The first guess is that it is going to explode or it is tunnel down and make a hole in the ice . Of course it did n't do any of those things . 'It did things we just did n't really expect . ' Professor Karson and Professor Wysocki have together set up the Lava Project at Syracuse University 's department of Earth Sciences to study how lava behaves in different situations . They create lava by melting basalt gravel in a giant gas fired furnace and then pouring it over sand , ice and through water . According to Alistair Linsell , a nuclear chemist working with EDF Energy and a science presenter with the Science Channel , the extreme heat of the lava is what causes the strange formations to form when it hits the ice . He said : 'The lava is so hot that when it is poured on to the ice , the ice turns not into water but straight into steam . 'The formation of all of this steam helps the lava to flow . It is sitting on top of a blanket of steam rather than the ice itself , this means the friction between the lava and the ice surface is very low . The lava flows rapidly across the surface of the ice on a cushion of escaping steam it creates as it moves . 'As the lava cools we start to get a thick black layer forming on top and that starts to trap those bubbles of superheated steam inside the rock . 'It is kind of like a natural form of glass blowing . ' The team used a specially created lava furnace to heat basaltic gravel to temperatures of more than 1,100°C . Professor Jeff Karson ( left ) and Professor Bob Wysocki ( right ) have been studying how lava flows behave .
Lava heated to more than 1,100°C turn ice straight into steam which then bubbles up through the molten rock to form a seething sheet of bubbles . The experiment was conducted by geologists at Syracuse University , NY . They created a lava furnace where they can melt basaltic gravel into lava .