Features: Magazine | Literary Review | Life | Metro Plus | Open Page | Education Plus | Book Review | Business | SciTech | Friday Review | Young World | Property Plus | Quest | Folio |

Chapel of crystals

It's "the Sistine Chapel of Crystals", says Juan Manuel García-Ruiz. 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. Buried a thousand feet (300 metres) 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. The cave contains some of the largest natural crystals ever found: translucent gypsum beams measuring up to 36 feet long and weighing up to 55 tons. The Cave of Crystals is a horseshoe-shaped cavity in limestone rock. Its floor is covered in crystalline, perfectly faceted blocks. The huge crystal beams jut out from both the blocks and the floor.

COMPILED BY ROHINI RAMAKRISHNAN

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail