[Rockhounds] ferrovolcanism

[Kreigh Tomaszewski]

But there's a third kind. Called *ferrovolcanism*, these would be volcanic
eruptions due to molten iron and other metals. It's never been directly
observed before, but iron-rich flows from the El Laco volcano in Chile
point toward ferrovolcanism <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Laco>. And
there's a mysterious asteroid orbiting the Sun out past Mars called Psyche
that may be a huge chunk of iron and nickel, and it may have had
ferrovolcanism in its past as well (more on that in a sec).

Because it's never been seen, how ferrovolcanism behaves is mostly
theoretical. To make matters a little more concrete empirical, a team of
scientists from NCSU
<https://news.ncsu.edu/2021/03/when-volcanoes-go-metal/> used the Syracuse
Lava Project facility in New York <http://lavaproject.syr.edu/> to simulate
a metallic volcanic flow. Using a huge crucible, they melted iron-rich
basalt (collected from an ancient volcanic formation in the US Great Lakes
region <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keweenawan_Supergroup>, which is
about 50% silicates, 10% iron, and the rest various minerals), then poured
it down a metal chute onto a base of sand to investigate how it flowed.

https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/full-metal-volcano