Giant Crystal Cave Comes to Light

Pictures of Giant Crystal Cave, Naica, Mexico: Mine
Pictures of Giant Crystal Cave, Naica, Mexico: First Cavern
Pictures of Giant Crystal Cave, Naica, Mexico: Megacrystals
Pictures of Giant Crystal Cave, Naica, Mexico: Shark Teeth
Pictures of Giant Crystal Cave, Naica, Mexico: Swords
Pictures of Giant Crystal Cave, Naica, Mexico: Desert
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Pictures of Giant Crystal Cave, Naica, Mexico: Mine
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Its walls studded with crystal "daggers," the 400-foot-deep (120-meter-deep) Cave of Swords is closer to the surface than the Cave of Crystals.

While there are more crystals in the Cave of Swords, they are far smaller, typically about a yard (a meter) long. Their relative compactness is likely due to a rapid temperature decline, as opposed to the far more gradual change that is believed to have encouraged the megacrystals in the deeper cave.

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—Photograph by Javier Trueba/Madrid Scientific Films (pictures previously appeared in the Spanish edition of National Geographic magazine)
 

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