Hundreds of feet deep below Mexico is a cave fit for a superhero movie
Written by Alex Corey
Imagine breaking through rock deep in the ground, only to have the earth open up into a mighty cave with crystals larger than buildings crisscrossing the dark space.
It may sound like a scene in a harrowing adventure movie, but for miners in Mexico in 2000, that is exactly what happened.
What they had discovered is what is now called the Cave of the Crystals, located far below ground near Chihuahua, Mexico. The spectacular caves have caught the imagination of many since their discovery, but despite the interest, they remain largely unexplored and mysterious.
Occupying massive caverns nearly 1000 feet underground, the Cave of the Crystals is almost impossible for humans to explore. The temperature hovers around 136 degrees Fahrenheit with humidity upwards of 90 percent. To stay in the caves more than 10 minutes, one needs a suit equipped with oxygen.
Then there is the issue of navigating the caves themselves. So far, researchers have only been able to explore the main chamber, though they think there are more. Not only did they have to design refrigerated suits to be able to do so, they also had to negotiate the humungous and prevalent crystals, which are some of the largest ever found, measuring up to 39 feet high. The crystals are made of selenite and are thought to have formed around 500,000 year ago. For the next hundreds of thousands of years they sat in water until Mexican miners broke through into the cave.
There are no guarantees we will ever get to see the rest of what lies deeper in these magnificent natural jewel boxes. After mining operations seek in that mine, the pumps that have been used to keep ground water from filling back up the cave will return. Once that happens, researchers will be unable to return, though it is possible they could use drone submersibles to explore instead. There could be even larger crystals or other formations of wonder. As our technological abilities increase, who knows what we will find in the previously inaccessible depths.
The Cave of the Crystals demonstrates just how little we know about much of what lies below our feet. Though we commonly think of space as the next frontier of exploration, there is clearly still wonder to be found in our caves and oceans. We have crystal palaces below us and we don’t even know it.
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