Today, Dr Rebecca Williams, better known as Becky or @volcanologist, is conducting her volcano demo for students on her fourth year module – ‘Volcanoes and their Hazards’.

This involves plastic bottles, warm water, liquid nitrogen and lots of colourful plastic balls. The video shows last year’s demonstration – most of it is set up but the exciting bit is after 2 minutes in.

Although this is of course and extremely fun and exciting activity, it also has a serious point as the distribution of the balls thrown up by the test is similar to that of material thrown out by a volcano. By measuring the distribution of the balls, the students get a good idea of how material is distributed after an eruption.

You can also view the boom from the ground in a video on the Hull University GEES Facebook page.