Word: lava
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...history of the moon is revealed by the different types of rock found there. Most of the rocks brought back from the lunar seas by Apollo 11 and 12 are titanium-rich basalt and gabbro. They appear to be once-molten lava from inside the moon which broke through the crust made of lighter anorthosite and crystallized to form the seas about 3.5 billion years...
Although the increased emission of gases from Etna in recent years gave scientists some hint of impending trouble, they are still unable to predict eruptions with any accuracy. As a result, they concentrate on trying to minimize damage once the lava flows. Belgian Volcanologist Haroun Tazieff, whose asbestos-suited sorties into fuming craters round the globe have earned him the sobriquet "The Inferno Detective," has suggested bombing Etna to test methods for diverting the lava flow from villages. The Italians shrugged off the idea. It could raise a Solomonic question: Whose land should be spared and whose should be ruined...
Dantesque Scene. Such problems are hardly new. Famed among the ancients as the forge of the fire god Vulcan, Etna has acted up throughout recorded history. During medieval times, its lava completely destroyed the city of Catania. The latest series of rumblings-the most dramatic in two decades and the eleventh of the century-began in the late afternoon of April 5. In a Dantesque scene, gases, glowing cinders, red-hot boulders and seething lava (temperature: about 2,000° F.) spewed out of newly opened boccas, or mouths, on Etna's upper slopes. Hot tongues of lava engulfed...
Scores of reporters and cameramen have arrived to record the geological drama. In one memorable scene, TV cameras caught a highway bridge on Etna's panoramic Sea and Snow drive being twisted and melted by encroaching lava. The eruptions have also created a carnival-like atmosphere; a few of the tourists have gone so far as to cheer whenever the lava pours into a fresh field or orchard. That behavior has threatened another kind of blowup: fighting between insensitive sightseers and angered Sicilian farmers...
...week's end Sant'Alfio was evacuated in advance of the relentless lava. Lacking any help from the scientists, the people of the mountain could only continue to beseech their saints for help in cooling Vulcan's fiery forge...