Jelly Volcanoes: Choose Your own Flavour and Follow the Magma Path to Eruption

It would be fantastic to be able to see through a volcano and watch how and where magma goes as it progresses towards the surface. This is precisely what can be done by making a volcano with gelatine and intruding it with a coloured fluid. Gelatine is an ideal material for this experiment because of its elastic properties, transparency, easy use and safety. This demonstration mimics the patterns of subsurface magma movements and enables the students to visualise how magma propagates within a volcano by creating its own fractures or dykes. The students can follow the propagation of the fluid-filled fractures, measure their shape and understand how the gravitational stress field within the volcanic edifice controls their orientation.