How do people examine lava? How do they contain it without melting everything?

Question: How do people examine lava? How do they contain it without melting everything?
- Keywords:
  equipment,
  experiment,
  lava
Asked by Zealousy to Josh, Chris on 23 Jun 2015.
- Josh Meyers answered on 23 Jun 2015:
  
  I am no expert on this! But I’m not sure that people do contain lava. They can either work on hot lava straight after it has come out of the volcano. Or they can take the cooled rock away to their laboratory.

Question: How do people examine lava? How do they contain it without melting everything?