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Giant amethyst cave8/30/2023 ![]() ![]() To learn how the crystals grew to such gigantic sizes, García-Ruiz studied tiny pockets of fluid trapped inside. "It's a natural marvel," said García-Ruiz, of the University of Granada in Spain. ![]() The cave contains some of the largest natural crystals ever found: translucent gypsum beams measuring up to 36 feet (11 meters) long and weighing up to 55 tons. The geologist announced this week that he and a team of researchers have unlocked the mystery of just how the minerals in Mexico's Cueva de los Cristales (Cave of Crystals) achieved their monumental forms.īuried a thousand feet (300 meters) below Naica mountain in the Chihuahuan Desert, the cave was discovered by two miners excavating a new tunnel for the Industrias Peñoles company in 2000. It's "the Sistine Chapel of crystals," says Juan Manuel García- Ruiz. "There is no other place on the planet," García-Ruiz said, "where the mineral world reveals itself in such beauty." Photograph by Javier Trueba/Madrid Scientific Films Now García-Ruiz is advising the mining company to preserve the caves. Modern-day mining operations exposed the natural wonder by pumping water out of the 30-by-90-foot (10-by-30-meter) cave, which was found in 2000 near the town of Delicias. ![]() Temperatures hovered consistently around a steamy 136 degrees Fahrenheit (58 degrees Celsius), and the cave was filled with mineral-rich water that drove the crystals' growth. In the new issue of the journal Geology, García-Ruiz reports that for millennia the crystals thrived in the cave's extremely rare and stable natural environment. How did the crystals reach such superheroic proportions? Geologist Juan Manuel García-Ruiz calls it "the Sistine Chapel of crystals," but Superman could call it home.Ī sort of south-of-the-border Fortress of Solitude, Mexico's Cueva de los Cristales (Cave of Crystals) contains some of the world's largest known natural crystals-translucent beams of gypsum as long as 36 feet (11 meters). "There is no other place on the planet," García-Ruiz said, "where the mineral world reveals itself in such beauty." Ī sort of south-of-the-border Fortress of Solitude, Mexico's Cueva de los Cristales (Cave of Crystals) contains some of the world's largest known natural crystals-translucent beams of gypsum as long as 36 feet (11 meters). Geologist Juan Manuel García-Ruiz calls it "the Sistine Chapel of crystals," but Superman could call it home. ![]()
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