Magma is molten rock found beneath Earth's surface. Deep underground, where temperatures can reach thousands of degrees, solid rock melts into a thick, glowing liquid that flows like extremely hot honey. This superhot mixture of melted minerals and dissolved gases sits in vast chambers miles below your feet, sometimes pooling there for thousands of years.

When magma pushes up through cracks in Earth's crust and breaks through to the surface, we call it lava. So magma and lava are actually the same material: it's magma when it's underground, and lava when it erupts from a volcano. Think of it like water in a pipe (magma) versus water flowing from a faucet (lava).

Magma doesn't just sit still. It moves slowly through the Earth, sometimes rising toward the surface, sometimes sinking back down. Geologists study magma chambers to predict volcanic eruptions. They've discovered that different types of magma behave differently: some are runny and flow easily, while others are thick and sticky, which makes them more likely to cause explosive eruptions.