First, lava is more than three times denser than water; because humans are made mostly of water, it's three times denser than us, too. The laws of physics therefore dictate that we will float on its surface, not sink.
So, when we're looking at water versus lava, lava is ~3.1 times the density and between ~100,000 to 1,100,000 times the viscosity.
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."
A random chunk of cold lava tossed into water will sink immediately.
This is called the Leidenfrost effect. But when water is injected rapidly into a tall column of lava, the water — which is about three times lighter than the lava — will speed upward and mix with the molten rock more quickly. This may cause the vapor film to destabilize, Sonder says.
Some have thought to spray the lava flow with water, hoping it will cool and freeze the front of the flow. But the extreme heat behind the crust, which is still molten, will allow the flow to continue.
Most lava is very hot—about 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit. At those temperatures, a human would probably burst into flames and either get extremely serious burns or die.
Other examples of metals and ceramics that can withstand lava's temperature include; titanium, iridium, iron alloys, osmium, nickel alloys, aluminum oxide, mullite, and silicon nitride.
Lava won't kill you if it briefly touches you. You would get a nasty burn, but unless you fell in and couldn't get out, you wouldn't die. With prolonged contact, the amount of lava "coverage" and the length of time it was in contact with your skin would be important factors in how severe your injuries would be!
While your lungs would almost undoubtedly be irrevocably charred from the hot air above the lava (assuming relatively static air conditions over the lava), it takes about 80 seconds for the average human to fall unconscious from lack of oxygen, and I highly doubt your body will last that long.
Above a certain temperature, these bonds break – and even the coldest lava on the planet would be far too hot for DNA or RNA to remain intact. So no, you almost certainly won't find anything alive in molten rock, even extremophiles.
Lava fluid enough to flow has a temperature well above the boiling point of water, and the water in contact with the lava will be heated to its boiling point in a matter of seconds.
Volcanic lava can be up to 12 times hotter than boiling water.
The answer lies in how you define “wet”. If we're using it as an adjective (definition: covered or saturated with water or another liquid), then lava is a liquid state so it therefore it's wet. But nothing touched by lava is left damp or moist, which means that you can't really use wet as a verb to describe lava.
Is lava hotter than the Sun? While lava is still intensely hot, it is not hotter than the Sun. On average, lava can range between 1,300 to 2,200 degrees Fahrenheit, depending on its location. It's safe to say the sun at all parts is much hotter than lava.
Tardigrades are among the most resilient animals known, with individual species able to survive extreme conditions – such as exposure to extreme temperatures, extreme pressures (both high and low), air deprivation, radiation, dehydration, and starvation – that would quickly kill most other known forms of life.
In fact, as it spills out onto Earth's surface as lava, the runny rock's temperature is only a little lower than the hottest part of a candle flame: about 1200 °C. On the other hand, a big blob of lava contains many more bouncing particles than a small candle flame, so it has a lot more heat energy.
“There is no physical way or technological way to change the course of where the lava flows,” he said.
Lava cools to form volcanic rock as well as volcanic glass. Magma can also extrude into Earth's atmosphere as part of a violent volcanic explosion. This magma solidifies in the air to form volcanic rock called tephra.
Rocks that cool quickly, especially the outer layers of a flow, are primarily composed of glass particles and tiny mafic minerals. This is why the outer surface of a flow is black.
Less dense things rise above more dense things, so if you attempt to replicate the actions of the authorities in a particularly egregious 1997 Hollywood movie and build a wall of concrete around a massive lava flow, it won't stop it – the blocks will float on top of it, heat up and begin to melt.