"Magical Cave of the Crystals"

Naica is a typical mining town located a130 km to the Southeastern of the State Capital of Chihuahua, to the north of Mexico. Traditionally the term is said that “Naica” means “place without water” but, more probably is of origin tarahumara (indigenous group) that derives from the roots nai (“place”) and ka (“shade”), “place in the shade”, alluding in the shade that the isolated mountain range projects on the desert.

The Naica mine with its enormous gypsum crystals may well be called the "Queen of the Giant Crystal localities". Giant crystals in general are exactly this : of remarkable dimensions ! But they are not necessarily nice or esthetic in the common sense and in fact they only rarely display free growing crystals. In Naica they do ! And all what you ever imagined about giant crystals in the interior of the earth, about enormous vugs filled with glittering crystals so large, you can walk among them, comes true in Naica!!!

In 2000 cave system was discovered at 300 m depth, even much more spectacular than the original discovery back in 1910. This newest discovery was named the "Cave of the Crystals" and it turned out to be one of the most spectacular geological and mineralogical discoveries ever made ! In fact it is a complex system of caves orientated along a geological fault, which yield free growing gypsum crystals up to 12 m size (!) and 2 m diameter.

 There is the story about a mine worker, who tried to steal some of the magnificient crystals shortly after the inital discovery, but was overwhelmed by heat, humidity and the low oxygen content of the cave atmosphere, lost consciousness and was found literally cooked ny his fellows some days later..

Conditions in the caves are much more hospitable now . But serious exploration and documentation of the caves and the giant gypsum crystals still has its obstacles. Right now a group of speleologists has started a large scale scientific mapping project, using state of the art technical equipment to tackle the still hostile environment of these caves.

This Cave looks like Superman´s Cave,  hehehe, what do you think?  ;)