Pop Rocks represent a singular achievement in confectionery petrology: a sugar matrix manufactured under 730 PSI of carbon dioxide pressure, trapping vesicles of CO2 gas measuring 225–350 micrometres in diameter — comparable in relative scale to vesicles in basaltic pumice. Patented in 1961 by William A. Mitchell and Leon T. Kremzner, the material was introduced to the American market in 1976 and briefly outsold all other candies 10 to 1 before urban legends about stomach explosions caused a market collapse. (The legends were false. No Rockies were harmed.) Upon contact with aqueous solutions — saliva being the most field-accessible — vesicle walls fail along CO2 pressure gradients, producing audible popping and a mild thermal event. This process is structurally analogous to volatile degassing in volcanic systems, at a scale that is considerably more approachable. Mitchell also invented Cool Whip, Tang, and powdered egg whites — making him arguably the greatest geological food scientist of the 20th century.
The vesiculation analogy
Pop Rocks are made by dissolving carbon dioxide into molten sugar under pressure; when the candy shatters in the mouth, the trapped gas escapes — the same physics that fills cooling lava with vesicles, scaled down and sweetened. The famous side-by-side with scoria is the program's most-requested demonstration and the entire agenda of the Effervescence Symposium.