Pictured: The Cave of Crystals discovered 1,000ft below a Mexican desertBy Victoria Moore
Created 10:15 PM on 27th October 2008
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Until you notice the orange-suited men clambering around, it's hard to grasp the extraordinary scale of this underground crystal forest.
Nearly 1,000ft below the Chihuahua Desert in Mexico, this cave was discovered by two brothers drilling in the Naica lead and silver mine. It is an eerie sight.
Up to 170 giant, luminous obelisks - the biggest is 37.4ft long and the equivalent height of six men - jut across the grotto like tangled pillars of light; and the damp rock of their walls is covered with yet more flawless clusters of blade-sharp crystal.
They are formed from groundwater saturated in calcium sulphate which, warmed by an intrusion of magma about a mile below, began filtering through the cave system millions of years ago.
When, about 600,000 years ago, the magma began to cool, the minerals started to precipitate out of the water, and over the centuries the tiny crystals they formed grew and grew until 1985, when miners unwittingly drained the cave as they lowered the water table with mine pumps.
Because the crystals resemble giant icicles, the picture suggests it must be very cold inside the Cave of Crystals - but appearances can be deceptive.
In fact, the temperature is a sweltering 112F, with a humidity of 90-100 per cent.
This is why cavers wear protective suits and carry backpacks of ice-cooled air.
Such conditions, and the fact that it takes 20 minutes to drive to its entrance through a twisting mine-shaft, haven't deterred would-be looters - one of the crystals bears a deep scar where someone has tried, and failed, to cut through it.
But the cave has now been fitted with a heavy steel door, the better to preserve this beautiful wonder for generations to come.
I know pic inlining is frowned up, but you HAVE to see this!
I can honestly say this one of the first times I've had to do a double-take at a photo. I then laughed when the article said to look at the people to understand the scale. These crystals are magnificent.
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So... these crystals were underwater for millienum, and only now has the cave been drained? No wonder the crystals are ginormous
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There was a show about this on the National Geographic channel. For those interested, I'm sure it will be repeated (again and again and again).
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Shit, those crystals looks fucking ridiculous, I'm almost tempted to just say "shenanigans!" and write the whole thing off as a photoshop.
Good to see lots of suprising things in the world.
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Darth Ruinus wrote:Shit, those crystals looks fucking ridiculous, I'm almost tempted to just say "shenanigans!" and write the whole thing off as a photoshop.
Good to see lots of suprising things in the world.
Just wait'll they find the hole in the back of the cave that leads to Pelucidar. Seriously, as soon as they're taking tourists, I'm going.
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I've been staring at the pictures. It gives me hope that even now, in the 21st century, we are still finding wonders of nature so staggeringly beautiful as this that we cannot do anything more than look in wonder.
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Ye gods. It's not anything we aren't familiar with, but it still stands a testament to how even the most simple scientific principles can yield the most wondrous phenomena.
A-fuckin'-mazing! I almost hate to say this, but it looks like somthing out of a Star Trek episode! Muy sweet.
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That is just amazing. I hope access remains extremely limited or else it will be ruined, or at least contaminated with skin oils and other things so much that the crystals sop growing. More then one amazing cave and crystal setup has been screwed over for that. IIRC it can take a couple hundred years for human skin oil to be worn away under cave conditions, and until then nothing can deposited on the contaminated surface.
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Sea Skimmer wrote:That is just amazing. I hope access remains extremely limited or else it will be ruined, or at least contaminated with skin oils and other things so much that the crystals sop growing. More then one amazing cave and crystal setup has been screwed over for that. IIRC it can take a couple hundred years for human skin oil to be worn away under cave conditions, and until then nothing can deposited on the contaminated surface.
I imagine given how incredibly hostile the environment is in that cavern that there won't be that many tourists going through there.
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Wait, are these crystals 400,000 years older than man?
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- Sean Hannity Forums user Avi
"And BTW the concept of carbon based life is only a hypothesis based on the abiogensis theory, and there is no clear evidence for it."
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Wait, are these crystals 400,000 years older than man?
Yeah, those things don't grow fast.
As a friend mentioned - it makes you wonder just how many other amazing natural wonders are hidden just out of our sight.
Well, if they're in our sight then quickly end up under our houses/boots.
This is awesome, i'd do a geology degree just to get a field trip there... (Well, a semester or two of it at least )
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Can you imagine the rape that would've happened to this cave if it had been discovered 100 years ago? Rockerfeller or Carnegie would've been buying massive crystal columns for their mansions, and it would be an empty, hot hole in the ground.
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Well the article said they had found one crystal scarred from an unsuccessful attempt to cut a piece off already, so they've put steel doors in place on the cave opening.
Good on them.
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