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Posted by: CosmicRocker Jul 8 2007, 06:05 AM

I was reading some papers at the GSA site recently and came across one describing giant gypsum crystals that were discovered in a Mexican cavern that was penetrated by mining operations near Naica, Mexico several years ago. The crystals were formed in an interesting environment. Being a confessed troglodyte, the paper immediately caught my attention. It is is worth a read if you have access. Here is a http://www.gsajournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-abstract&doi=10.1130%2FG23393A.1.

I thought some people here would enjoy seeing more pictures, since most everyone I directed to the pictures was duly impressed. You can Google for additional pictures and other information, but the cave was recently explored by the Italian La Venta explorers, and they have posted some of the http://laventa.it/naica/naica-crystal-cave.en.html. You can also read their expedition log and find a few more pictures http://laventa.it/naica/naica-news.en.html. The environment is at about 60 degrees C, with 100% humidity, so you can imagine that exploring here and doing science is on the extreme edge.

If it was not for the fact that the mining operation is pumping out groundwater at something like 1000 liters/minute, this cavern would be submerged in hot water, and the crystals would still be growing. When the mining operation stops, so will pumping, and these natural wonders will again become inaccessible. I hope some museums are bidding for a few specimens to place in specially climate-controlled exhibits. Any contributions to the clink jar will be donated to a favorite geological charity.

Posted by: nprev Jul 8 2007, 07:05 AM

..Good God!!! That is arguably the most incredible thing I've ever seen, period, CR. Reminds me of the wonderful 1960s movie version of Journey to the Center of the Earth.

If the government of Mexico and/or the private interests who own the mine have any sense, they'll keeo pumping when the mining's done and maintain & market the site as a select ecotourism location. This will keep the local economy booming long, long after the last bit of ore is extracted from the mines. All us aging baby-boomers who truly dug the movie I just mentioned would kill for a look at this, 60 deg C./100% humidity or not!

EDIT: Forgot to add <clink exp googleplex>...I'll send you a check. Even my girlfriend, normally unimpressed with things scientific, was astonished at this and emitted a few clinks of her own...

Posted by: edstrick Jul 8 2007, 08:09 AM

First mentions that I saw on this showed up a vew years ago and has been covered by National Speleological Society <NSS> and other caving publications, but while cavers can torture themselves mechanically by pushing through the most unfriendly groad-holes, they're no more able than the average citizen to stand being poached and parboiled. Also, since the "cave-geode" is accessed through a mine, it's not a usual caving opportunity and it's taken time for interest to rise and some group to get the funding and cooperation setup for real investigation... It's a gosh-wow-boy-oh-boy place, for sure.

Posted by: CosmicRocker Jul 9 2007, 05:28 AM

Yeah, it would be a tough attraction to make accessible to the public. From what I have read, they seem to be trying to prevent these rarities from suffering the same dehydration fate suffered by some of the crystals discovered in shallower galleries in the past. Some webcams might be one way to do it, short of excavating parts of it for a museum.

I remember being amazed by the smaller crystals that were discovered many years ago in the Cave of the Swords, and probably others found in the shallower reaches of the mine. There were some reports of those crystals dehydrating and becoming opaque. I have some candle holders that were apparently cut from some of the 6 inch crystals from this district. One of them has developed an opaque area, caused by the proximity of a candle flame on one occasion.

edstrick: I haven't been a member of the NSS since the early 70's, so I probably didn't notice their mentioning of this. It sounds like I need to rejoin. I'd be willing to suffer parboiling to visit this cave.

nprev: Journey to the Center of the Earth was one of my favorite movies of all time. Thanks for reminding me.

Posted by: Stu Jul 9 2007, 10:39 AM

AMAZING pic, wow!

I think Superman's gonna be upset tho when he finds out someone's been taking pics inside his Fortress of Solitude...

Posted by: edstrick Jul 10 2007, 09:16 AM

"...I haven't been a member of the NSS since the early 70's, ..."
I was a member then, too some-weird-how I can remember my NSS number from then, 12393 (i think) Niagara Frontier Grotto. Haven't been a member in a LONG LOOOONG time, but my brothers are both members, one very active.

As my oldest brother calls the caver-NSS... "The OTHER NSS"... when talking with space-NSS folk!

Posted by: nprev Jul 11 2007, 01:43 AM

(sigh)...yeah, I see your point, CR; hard to keep the required environment pristine with tourists tramping in & all the necessary climactic accomodations needed to keep them from keeling over. Only reason I thought of it was as a way to keep preservation an economically attractive option.

Still, the powers-that-be should consider making it a UN World Heritage Site, at least. This is incredible, and we're unlikely to find its like again...

Posted by: edstrick Jul 11 2007, 10:37 AM

My middle-brother just got back from a weekend caving trip in Mexico <cave hunting and shredded-tire replacing (3 of them!), mostly>.
He said that the mine is running out of ore and profitably and is expected to close in about a couple years. They'll stop the pumps, the chamber will reflood, and hopefully the crystals will resume growing.

Posted by: CosmicRocker Jul 12 2007, 02:43 AM

I'm open to any scheme that might be able to keep them accessible while preserving them. I'd sure like to see them in person some day. But the information I found while researching them strongly suggested the mine had limited remaining life, and that the pumps would stop when mining stops.

I've got to imagine that a few of those crystals will be removed and sold to museums and/or collectors before they cut off the pumps. Their cost would probably be well beyond my means, but can you imagine putting one of them in your living room and outfitting it with adjustable illumination?

Posted by: dburt Jul 20 2007, 12:01 AM

Hey you-all,

I used to be an active member of NSS too in college, but eventually gave up caving when they started paying me big bucks to go underground in mines (then it was too much like a busman's holiday). I once toured a small silver mine in that part of Mexico. It was in a still-active hot spring. The miners, all males, wore only a hardhat and handkerchiefs hung strategically over their lampbelt. Every half hour or so they'd go stand by the mineshaft to slug a liter of water and enjoy the little bit of cooler air that dropped down the open shaft. Hardly an ideal tourist destination.

--HDP Don

Posted by: Bill Harris Jul 20 2007, 12:30 AM

>I've got to imagine that a few of those crystals will be removed and sold to museums and/or collectors before they cut off the pumps...

Since the mining itself has changed the groundwater chemistry and movement these crystal deposits are probably short-lived after the mine is abandoned. Wild idea would be for someone with beau coup funds to make dioramas of the significant crystal occurances for display in a nearby museum facility. Rather a speleological Abu Simbel, no?

--Bill

Posted by: CosmicRocker Jul 21 2007, 02:17 AM

Bill: Moving it or part of it as they did Abu Simbel would be incredibly expensive, but removing the individual crystals probably wouldn't. I hope they manage to get at least some of the crystals into museums. It's good to see you back; we've missed you. BTW, how are you enjoying retirement? I was planning to retire at the end of the year, but then I realized that if I worked one day into 2008, they'd have to pay me an additional 6 weeks of vacation time.

Her Doktor: I'm glad to see you have the time to visit other corners of the forum. What do you think about the long term stability of these gypsum crystals if removed from their current environment? Might they dehydrate?

All this reminiscing about the NSS had me looking for my old caving pictures and stuff, but all I've managed to locate so far is my old NSS belt buckle. I used to spelunk mostly in central Indiana. Where did the rest of you explore caves, and does anyone have any good caving stories?

Posted by: dburt Jul 21 2007, 03:57 AM

CosmicRocker - When I was a grad student, there were some giant gypsum crystals from the initial 1920s discovery (Cave of the Swords) in that same mine at the Harvard mineralogy museum. So they should be perfectly stable if you keep them out of the Arizona sun in the summer, and do a little to maintain temperature and humidity. Remember, ordinary wallboard is made out of gypsum (usually with a coating of paint). Excavating and transporting them would probably be the major problem - very soft crystals (hardness only 2 out of 10) with excellent cleavage.

Most of my old caving was in West Virginia and Virginia in the early 1960's with carbide lamps and very muddy coveralls and occasional winter camping underground (complete with panic-inducing midnight visits by skunks), plus the usual undergraduate hi-jinks.

And now that the other thread has been closed, the professorator has some spare time...

--HDP Don

Posted by: edstrick Jul 21 2007, 08:24 AM

>grins at dburt<

"I "Yo-yo'd" Hellhole in WVA about 1969 or 71. Niagara frontier grotto'd make a caving trip or two each fall down to Pa of WVa. Blacksburg NSS convention somtime around 71.. infinite amounts of mud in the campground

Posted by: MouseOnMars Jul 21 2007, 05:11 PM

We never did this crystal growing experiment in Science classes ! Ha! Ha!

The bench would have collapsed and .... well ....

This reminds me of a Cave I went into in the Petén, Guatemala. Just near the Finca I was staying at. Not on the same scale as this, but just within the light inside the cavern were these huge ceiling to floor formations that were hollow. When you tapped them they were the most exquisite musical instruments that you could play !

Nearby were what I thought were tree roots growing along the cave walls. When I looked a bit closer they were actually little ant "highways". Tubes with ants scurrying along them. I was thinking, what are you all doing in here ??

Will the wonders never cease ?

mouseonmars

Posted by: CosmicRocker Jul 22 2007, 06:28 AM

I finally found my old caving files. Among them were two pictures of myself in caves, a stash of GSA publications, and even a reprint I bought titled "Caves of Missouri," by J. Harlan Bretz himself! The price stamped on the front cover was 25 cents. I forgot that he and I had other common interests, beyond the ancient Catastrophist vs. Uniformitarian debate.

What a blast from the past. I was an undergraduate chemistry major back in those days, and I discovered that I was more interested in rocks than theoretical chemistry. I dropped out of that curriculum and enrolled in geology without looking back.

Posted by: edstrick Jul 22 2007, 07:47 AM

It was so wonderful that Harlan Bretz lived to see himself vindicated beyond all imaginability when they held field trips to the Channeled Scablands as catastrophic flood channels to compare with Mariner 9 and Viking orbiter imagery.

Posted by: Bill Harris Jul 22 2007, 12:00 PM

>Moving it or part of it as they did Abu Simbel would be incredibly expensive...

True, but with enough money... But I'm sure that major harvesting will happen, and without the complaint of 'ruining the natural setting'. It would be interesting to imagine the caverns we _haven't_ found.

Retirement is OK, but I'm working harder than I have over the past 20 years. I'm needing to slow down: last Spring I fell and tore my rotator cuff (shoulder). Last month I found that I have a heart rhythm problem and spent a week in ICU. Not able to leap tall buildings in a single bound, yet, but I'm better.

You'll enjoy "graduation from work" (I hate the R-word).

--Bill

Posted by: MouseOnMars Jul 22 2007, 12:10 PM

That very interesting edstrick,

I'm glad I started gracing this establishment, as as have been trying to formulate my own overview of Earth/Mars geology on a rather shaky basis.

I initially mistook Bretz for the "glaciers as catastrophic floods" theory that erroneously saw out of place boulders as shifted by water, when of course it was frozen water that did it. It's wonderful to find him rather than the avalanche of "crackpot" theories I seem to have been listening to ( ).

Vallis Marineris is nearby some of the largest volcanoes in the solar system, and on a planet that used to have huge amounts of water, so I'm beginning to see a picture, as they say.

Amazing what a cave can do !

mouseonmars

Posted by: CosmicRocker Jul 25 2007, 04:58 AM

Bill: Ouch! That's a muscle that seems to respond slowly and painfully to rehab. I'm glad to hear that you recommend "graduation," but I note your comment regarding work in the post-work environment. I hope things are now going well for you.

Ed: I would have loved to tag along on one of those field trips. I can imagine that Bretz might have enjoyed noting his influence on the emerging planetary sciences.

Posted by: CosmicRocker Aug 31 2007, 04:47 AM

I wouldn't have revived this old topic except for the fact that a friend sent me a file with about 50 or so pictures of these crystals that I hadn't seen before. This place is just so darn incredible that I thought at least a few people would like to see more pictures from this cavern. I found http://www.mines.edu/stu_life/organ/aapg/misc/ from which you can download either a pdf or a ppt presentation containing a lot of pictures of the huge crystals from the Naica mine.

There are comments contained in that presentation suggesting there are/were plans to refrigerate the space and make it accessible to tourists. I haven't been able to find any other convincing evidence that it is actually happening. I may just have to drive down there after I retire/graduate and try to meet some people who have connections.

Posted by: MouseOnMars Aug 31 2007, 09:05 PM

One of Scientists (at least I think he's a Scientist, he must be trained in Geology) has an agreement with the mining company. He must be doing research in how best to preserve the cave. You can see his comment about this http://flickr.com/photos/johnnyg/520412960/

Serendpitously I stayed in Chihuahua (the nearest big town to the mine) in 1993. I was just about to add Chihuahua as the next place in my http://maps.google.co.uk/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=106911892091752598411.00000111c78662c4d78f9&z=3&om=1, when I found the map in your link confirming where the cave is .

MouseOnMars

Posted by: jasedm Jul 29 2008, 11:17 AM

I know I'm an inveterate reviver of old threads, so apologies, but I wondered if there was any news on how/if these crystals were preserved, or re-submerged. I can't find anything after 2007 on the net. Can anyone point me in the right direction?

Posted by: ElkGroveDan Sep 22 2008, 05:11 PM

Reviving this discussion to draw attention to the upcoming National Geographic special on these caves, October 12th.

http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/episode/giant-crystal-cave-3569/Overview

Posted by: CosmicRocker Sep 23 2008, 04:52 AM

Thank you, thank you, Dan. That's now an event on my Google calendar and in Outlook with multiple reminders.

This should be a very good show. I see they are producing it with the La Venta exploration people, who, I think, provided some of the web pages previously linked to in this thread.

Posted by: CosmicRocker Oct 11 2008, 07:06 AM

This is just a reminder for those of you who wanted to see more from this hole in the earth. The National Geographic program is http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2008/11/crystal-giants/shea-text/1 tomorrow, on October 12th. Additional information is available on that page...

Oh yes, thanks jasedm and EGD for reviving this thread.