Afternoon Palate Cleanser: Watch This Guy Step Onto Hot Lava

Remember San Francisco startup guy Sam Cossman, who walked nearly to the brink of an active volcano in Vanatu? Well, this isn't that, but it's still a fun look at someone getting up close and personal with a mass of hot lava.

Alex Rivest has a PhD in Neuroscience from MIT, but apparently all that book learnin' didn't instill in him any sort of fear of molten rock. While visiting the Hawaiian volcano Kilauea — the lava flow of which is expected to destroy a supermarket and gas station this weekend — Rivest decided to taunt the angry volcanic gods by tapping his foot on the lava.

Here's what went down:

That's it? Not the scene depicted at the 50-second mark in this compilation of clips from the motion picture Volcano?

Here's why, Rivest says:

When the lava emerges from one of the vents at Kilauea, it comes out at 700 to 1,200 °C (1,292 to 2,192 °F), and begins to make its way to the path of least resistance.

This video shows how pressure applied to this dense material only causes a slight indentation. While this may not be surprising (it is liquid rock), I think that many people think of lava as more of a hot-watery-like substance. You would never fall into a lava lake the way you would a swimming pool, the molten rock is much more dense, so you would simply land on it, sink a little, and be burned.

In other words, don't get your science info from a movie starring Tommy Lee Jones and Anne Heche.

Related: The Guy Who Walked Into That Volcano Works For S.F. Startup