I am going to look down today instead of up. Just last week, there was an expedition to the Crystal Cave of Giants in Niaca, Mexico. This cave was discovered in 2000 and contains some spectacular crystallized gypsum.
You can see that they aren't kidding. The suit is due to the fact that it is hot and humid in there...112 F (50C ) and 90% humidity. You don't want to hang out there long without a cooling suit. The crystals are up to 11 meters long and weight up to 55 tons.
This is not exactly my field, so I will let you read the account of the journey and see the other pictures. National Geographic has a nice story summarizing how they formed as well.Reprinted with permission from the Half-Astrophysicist Blog.
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10 comments:
Wow! That is fantastic! I never heard of this.
You post the coolest things!
It's a shame that one day they will turn the pumps off and it will all be gone.
I don't know, DA...when the pumps get turned off, they will start growing again...even though we won't be able to see it, that is pretty cool as well!
From the website:
"When the Naica mine is no longer profitable, it is likely that they will just shut off the water pumps and the crystal cave would then disappear forever."
Does that just mean they would close it up and no one could go in?
If so, I misunderstood.
The end of the National Geographic article mentions the crystals would start growing again if allowed to flood, but we wouldn't be able to see them...hence the "disappearing"...at least from our view.
That picture is just freaking amazing. I think yahoo featured this story as well. Really something to see. Thanks for posting.
I was this on National Geographic once. I thought it was awesome!
Man, oh man. I didn't know that we could near enough to a magma chamber to feel the heat.
They are amazing and just think...they where not discovered until 2000!!
I saw this on TV. My father called me in the room and told me to watch this.. at first I just saw the crystals but nothing to compare them to and I thought sure they were beautiful, but didn't understand why he had to call me in.. Then I saw a picture of a man walk beside them and I understood what it was all about.. It was amazing..
That struck me as well, Ser. This was discovered so recently and really not that far underground (we have mines much deeper than that)...what other wonders are just out of sight that we may find?
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