A stunning underground cavern, hailed as the "Sistene Chapel of crystals”, has been found to have a deadly secret. The cave, which is located in Chihuahua, Mexico, is filled with some of the largest natural crystals on the planet – with some as big as trees.
It lies some 980 feet beneath the earth and was discovered by chance in 2000. Miners were drilling a tunnel into a lead, zinc and silver mine in the town of Naica, 65 miles southeast of Chihuahua City when they unearthed a chamber full of towering, milky white crystals.
These incredible formations, the largest of which measures more than 37 feet long and a 3 feet wide, are made of selenite gypsum, a sulphate mineral that forms from salts dissolved in groundwater, Live Science reports. This mineral is so soft, you can scratch it with a fingernail and is often used by crystal lovers for meditation (it allegedly possesses “cleansing” and “charging properties”).
"It's the Sistine Chapel of crystals," Juan Manuel García-Ruiz, a geologist with the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), who has studied the cave, told National Geographic in 2007. A number of crystal-filled caves have been discovered since mining operations began in Naica back in 1974-- but the Cave of Crystals, which is shaped like a horseshoe, is the biggest by far, with a maximum volume of more than twice an Olympic swimming pool (7,800 cubic yards). The cavern, which is made of limestone, sits above a magma reservoir buried 2-3 miles beneath Naica, and is also on a fault line.
Its crystals were formed when, 26 million years ago, magma rose from this reservoir, forcing mineral-rich waters upward through cracks in the rock, Live Science notes. Nevertheless, while conditions in the cave are ideal for crystals, they are deadly to humans.Hum idity stands at more than 90 per cent – a level at which sweating has no cooling effect on the body. Because of this, people need proper protection to stay in the cave for longer than 10 minutes.
No comments:
Post a Comment