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Common sense would suggest that when molten lava meets a sheet of ice it will simply melt through.

But geologist Professor Jeff Karson and artist Professor Bob Wysocki from Syracuse University in New York found that the results can be far more spectacular.

Using a lava furnace to heat gravel to temperatures of more than 1,100°C (2,000°F) they were able to pour it onto a slab of ice to produce a seething, bubbling mass of molten rock.

Lava turns ice directly into steam which bubbles up through the molten rock to form bizarre glass bubbles

Professor Karson, who has been pouring lava in a series of experiments to better understand how it behaves and forms geological formations, described it as 'scrambled eggs from hell'.

Rather than melting straight through the ice, the lava instead flows rapidly on top of it on a cushion of steam.

Steam from the ice below bubbles up through the molten rock as it tries to escape, forming a layer of glassy bubbles.

Professor Karson said: 'The first guess is that it is going to explode or it is tunnel down and make a hole in the ice. Of course it didn't do any of those things.

'It did things we just didn't really expect.'

Professor Karson and Professor Wysocki have together set up the Lava Project at Syracuse University's department of Earth Sciences to study how lava behaves in different situations.

They create lava by melting basalt gravel in a giant gas fired furnace and then pouring it over sand, ice and through water.

Getting steamy! This is what happens when lava meets ice

According to Alistair Linsell, a nuclear chemist working with EDF Energy and a science presenter with the Science Channel, the extreme heat of the lava is what causes the strange formations to form when it hits the ice.

He said: 'The lava is so hot that when it is poured on to the ice, the ice turns not into water but straight into steam.

'The formation of all of this steam helps the lava to flow. It is sitting on top of a blanket of steam rather than the ice itself, this means the friction between the lava and the ice surface is very low.

The lava flows rapidly across the surface of the ice on a cushion of escaping steam it creates as it moves

'As the lava cools we start to get a thick black layer forming on top and that starts to trap those bubbles of superheated steam inside the rock.

'It is kind of like a natural form of glass blowing.'

The team used a specially created lava furnace to heat basaltic gravel to temperatures of more than 1,100°C

Professor Jeff Karson (left) and Professor Bob Wysocki (right) have been studying how lava flows behave