What do volcanologists wear when they are working near an erupting volcano?
It depends on how close they get and how violent the eruption is. I took a field trip to Hawaii some years ago. As part of that we twice went out to the active lava flows. The only special clothing that was worn by us were flame orange vests to make us more visible in the event of trouble. (The kind of vests that road worker wear.) Other than these we were just wearing denim pants, t-shirts, and hiking boots +/- leather gloves. (The young lava tends to break into very sharp fragment. So, leather glove are a good idea in case you stumble while walking over the very uneven surface of the cooled flows. Unfortunately, I forgot to pack my gloves. So, I came back from this trip with a number of small cuts on my hands.) On the other hand, if the volcanologist is going to be getting close to a major lava flow or a lava fountain, then he may wear one of those silvery “asbestos” suits that firefighter often use when fight a fire from a crashed airplane.
