Showing posts with label Minerals. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Minerals. Show all posts

Nov 19, 2008

MEXICO'S CUEVA DE LOS CRISTALES (CAVE OF CRYSTALS)

Sometimes the mind cannot wrap itself around what it is seeing. Sometimes the sights and sounds and sensations are just to overwhelming to be believed. Believe it though. There exists on Earth places so incredibly beautiful, so ridiculously grand, as to defy the English language.
Mexico's Cave of Crystals is one of these places. Discovered by two miners in 2000, and drained of it's heavy-mineral-content water in 2007, the cave is home to enormous gypsum crystals, some as long as 11 meters (36 feet).








The Cave of Crystals is a horseshoe-shaped cavity in limestone rock about 30 feet (10 meters) wide and 90 feet (30 meters) long.

Volcanic activity that began about 26 million years ago created Naica mountain and filled it with high-temperature anhydrite gypsum (giant shards of which are pictured above).

When magma underneath the mountain cooled and the temperature dropped, the anhydrite began to dissolve. The anhydrite slowly enriched the waters with sulfate and calcium molecules, which for millions of years have been deposited in the caves in the form of huge selenite gypsum crystals.

"There is no limit to the size a crystal can reach," geologist Juan Manuel GarcĂ­a-Ruiz said.


Here is another webpage detailing further this amazing cave.

Nov 15, 2008

-FUPPETS- FOR READERS IV

The transfer of information from the pixelated screen before your eyes into the optic nerve which feeds your brain is as fickle as your digestive system, for what is inserted/exposed is directly responsible for what results, and these dark symbols upon white fields can be considered "tasty eatin' for the ole noggin."

A Short Column About Music 11.06.08: Sonic Youth - EVOL (Andrew Moll - 411Mania.com)

Man's Best Friend Forever: Cloning Dogs For Fun & Profit (Greg Beato - Reason.com)

Agony & Ecstasy: The Art World Explained (Barry Schwabsky - TheNation.com)

Minerals Evolved Along With Life (Sid Perkins - ScienceNews.org)

The First Soundbites: The presidential campaign, 1908-style. Hear early phonograph recordings. (Ron Cowen - ScienceNews.org)

-FUPPETS-