Geology

[kdsmith137]

Using household items or products, is there a way to simulate/explain why lava in Africa flows red at night and black during the day?

[Clanad]

If it's school work your needing to complet, I'm sure the instructor had in mind the things you've asked in your post... however, unless you have material to make natrocarbonatite flows like the ones from Oldoinyo Lengai in northern Tanzania it would be quite difficult...

Thing is natrocarbonatite lava flows at a considerably lower temp than the Hawaiian volcanoes and therefore doesn't glow red but rather a dark purple and this can only be seen at night... otherwise, it looks black, whcih, BTW, quickly begins to weather into gray and white in a realtively short period of time...

[DTCwordfan]

true....some of the crystallisation out at high temp can be interesting, the creation of tanzanite in the molten flow, though most are in metamorphosis - however, artificial conditions can push it through to the blue we associate it with.....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanzanite

[Mosaic]

It doesn't.
The change that we perceive is due to ambient light levels. Like lighting a candle during brilliant daylight, or pitch darkness.
You can reconstruct flow types with any number of household items, but a cheap one might be very sloppy wallpaper paste.
The only way you could explain the apparent colour change would be to have the flow occur on a clear or translucent base, with a weak red light underneath it. Poder the top of the flow with ash to replicate the cooled lava at the top of the flow.

[jomifl]

An electric cooker ring on a low setting looks black under daylight but glows red in the dark for the very reason mosaic has explained.