Posted on 06/06/2007 9:33:40 AM PDT by BGHater
In one of the largest lead and silver mines in the world, workers discovered what researchers are calling the “cathedral” of giant gypsum crystals about 300 meters (about 1,000 feet) belowground. The Naica mine in Mexico contains “huge crystalline beams,” with moonlight luster that is “unforgettable,” says Juan Manuel García-Ruiz, a crystallographer at the Universidad de Granada in Spain.
The giant, faceted crystals of gypsum — a soft, whitish mineral — are as long as 11 meters (36 feet) and up to 1 meter (about 3 feet) thick. To figure out how the crystals grew so large, García-Ruiz and colleagues studied tiny bubbles of fluids that were trapped in the crystals while they were growing.
The researchers found that the perfect balance of temperature and salinity of the waters from which the crystals grew spurred the massive crystal growth. If temperatures were much cooler, millions of small crystals of gypsum would have formed instead, and if temperatures were much warmer, a different mineral would have formed, the researchers reported in the April issue of Geology.
These crystals can continue to bloom if conditions are right, García-Ruiz says. Currently, the crystals are no longer growing because the water that feeds them is being pumped out of the cave to allow mining and exploration. If the water were allowed to run naturally through the system, however, the crystals would likely keep on growing.
Although large gypsum crystals have been found in other locations, such as near Segobriga, Spain, and in the Cave of Swords in Chihuahua, Mexico, near the Cave of Crystals, says García-Ruiz, they are unrivaled and should be preserved. These colossal crystals, he says, are “every crystallographer’s dream.”
The Fortress Of Solitude?
Large but not colossal. A colossus is a statue.
colossal = the size of a statue
GGG ping?
di-lithium crystals ?
lol....Is this article about the 2000 discovery? Is this a new chamber?
Colossal is a kind of statue and need not be large.
That’s a L...o...t of drywall!
Geologist ping
A few more pics: The Naica fabulous crystals
Or it could just be that the crystals are in the foreground and the spelunker is in the background...
Wow! They’ve discovered the planet Krypton! :-)
The largest is 30 feet long and three feet thick. That’s all it will ever be now that the stable conditions have been changed.
—Or it could just be that the crystals are in the foreground and the spelunker is in the background...—
Or, the crystals are normal size and the spelunker is short.
Alert the View! They can bring Rosie back to explain the powers given off by the Crystals and their rolee in 9/11!
—Alert the View! They can bring Rosie back to explain the powers given off by the Crystals and their rolee in 9/11!—
Rosie O’Dungbeetle should be locked up in that cave.
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