if you've seen those videos of lava flows moving at a crawl towards villages and everybody just standing around shrugging, it does bring up the question of trying to do something to stop it. of course, the problem is that just about anything you could think of putting in the way is just going to melt, so it seems pointless. and you'd imagine that the amount of ice necessary to even slow it down a little is going to create flooding issues as bad as the lava flow (once the bulk of it transfers to the atmosphere).

i guess this is maybe useful as something exploratory, to get a better understanding of it. but i wouldn't count on seeing helicopters dropping piles of ice on moving lava flows any time soon...