Question

Imagine that instead of looking at ice in water, you were looking at a rock in magma, respectively. Assume that the rock solidified from the magma. What do you expect to happen next? To answer this question, you can think of the water in the glass as liquid magma, and the ice as a solid rock solidified from the magma.

A. The rock would sit in the magma at about the same proportional depth as the ice sits in the water.
B. The rock would rise up and extend higher above the magma as proportionally compared to the position of the ice in the water.
C. The rock would sink to the bottom of the magma.

Answer 1

C. The rock would sink to the bottom of the magma.

Rocks typically have a higher density than magma, and as a result, they tend to sink in liquid magma. This is because magma is less dense than solid rock, so solid rock is more dense than the surrounding magma, causing it to sink to the bottom. This is the same principle that causes dense objects to sink in a liquid, such as a rock sinking in water. The sinking of solidified rock in magma is also due to the convective flow of the magma, which causes denser materials to sink to the bottom while lighter materials rise to the top.