Pumice can float because eruptions foam rock with trapped gas
Pumice is volcanic glass frothed full of gas bubbles during explosive eruptions, so many pieces are light enough to float on water until they slowly soak and sink.
Huge rafts of pumice sometimes drift across oceans after submarine or island eruptions, carrying hitchhiking life and alarming ships that meet a floating stone field.
Rock is not always dense. Pumice proves magma can invent a foam so airy that “stone” behaves like a temporary boat.
Comments
0 comments