[O-07] Kitchen Earth Science: its potential for producing diverse goals by hands-on experiments

[O07-P02] Formation process of “Pele’s hair” as considered by making cotton candy

★Invited Papers

Miyuki Yamada², *Ichiro Kumagai¹ (1.School of Science and Engineering, Meisei University, 2.Tokyo Keizai University)

Keywords:Pele's hair, volcano, cotton candy, Kitchen Earth Science

Pele’s hairs are volcanic glass products which are formed by the breakup, stretching, and cooling of molten magma during the volcanic eruption. It is thought that the texture of the glass fibers depends on rheological properties of the volcanic glass, the cooling rate, the ejection speed, the wind velocity, and so on. To better understand the formation process of Pele’s hairs, we conducted the analog experiments using a cotton candy maker. The molten sugar was formed by heating the rotating disk and was ejected through the small outlets at the periphery of the rotating disk. By controlling the rotation speed, heating temperature, and outlet diameter, we could produce a variety of Pele’s hair. In this presentation, we will demonstrate how to make the experimental Pele’s hair and discuss the texture similarity to real Pele’s hairs observed in the Hawaiian Islands.