Will Pumice Float? (Video)
Being volcanic islands, it is pretty easy to find lava in the Galapagos Islands. It is literally everywhere. We just picked some pumice up on the beach – it actually was being blown around by the wind. It looked like small pieces of sponge or foam. The idea of a floating stone is pretty absurd so we ran this simple test.
In the test, we took a piece of common a’a (pronouced ah ‘ ah) lava and a piece of pumice that we found on the ground. The a’a lava is very dense – almost like iron ore. The pumice is porous and round.
The Two Types of Lava
- a’a lava: the dark and rough stone
- pumice lava: the light colored round stone
