Re: USAGE: YAEUT: "Molten" vs. "Melted"

The important point here is I think the one Ray made.  The
relationship between "molten" and "to melt" is purely of etymological
interest.  In modern English, the two words are wholly independent;
"molten" is simply an indeclinable adjective, and "to melt" has only
one past participle form ("melted").   When someone refers to
something as "molten", they aren't thinking of the melting, and they
don't mean "melted" - the connection between "molten" and "melted" is
not significantly tighter than that between "green" and "painted".