Julia Sherred's Geeky Pleasures

Sometimes I forget the world is not filled with nerds and geeks. Sometimes I forget that there are some really spectacular geological events that everyone should be aware of but are not. I was reminded of this recently, twice in as many weeks, regarding the same event. I received a phone call and an email basically saying, “OMG Jules! You need to see this! You will think it amazing especially since you took geology.” Then they tell me the event, and I get arrogant and say, “Duh. That’s old news.” Well regardless if it is old news to me, for some it is new. And for others maybe the news has not reach them yet. So behold! Superman’s Fortress of Solitude!

Actually, if you have not seen this wondrous phenomena yet, these are images taken from within a cave of giant crystals located in  Naica, Mexico. This cave was accidentally discovered in 2000. Discovery Channel ran a special about these caves about a year ago (and has been rebroadcasted lately and will air again Friday at 10 pm ET) and the BBC ran one last night. Here are some interesting facts as found on the Discovery Channel website:

• The giant crystals found in the caves at Naica are softer than a human fingernail.
• The largest crystal found at Naica is 500,000 years old.
• The stunning crystal pillars are made from the same common mineral as drywall – it’s called gypsum.
• The Naica cave’s deadly heat comes from the depths of the Earth. Naica sits on a set of fault lines. A magma chamber a mile and a half down warms the water that flows throughout the mountain.
• The Naica principle cave “Cueva de Los Cristales” is 45 degrees Celsius and 100 per cent humidity.
• The Naica facility pumps 16,000 gallons of water per minute out of the mine and runs 24-7.
• The water pumped from the Naica mine formed a lake in the arid Chihuahua desert and is also used to irrigate a golf course.
• Naica is one of the most productive lead mines in the world, and a huge supplier of the world’s silver as well.
• The Naica cave actuality footage was shot on solid-state memory HD video cameras (tape-less) wrapped in plastic bags and pre-heated for three hours prior to entering the cave.
• The Naica Project team created a stop-motion robot and fitted it with a Nikon digital still camera powered by a custom software to capture beauty-shot sequences of the cave with 10-megapixel resolution.

If you have not had the opportunity to see the Discovery Channel special yet and don’t think you can watch it this Friday, thankfully it can be found online. The only unfortunate part about the online version is the annotations blocking the video at the beginning of them.

Amazing!