Photo credit: 60 Minutes Australia
Way down under the sun-baked dirt of Chihuahua, Mexico, hides a geological jaw-dropper that’s hard to wrap your head around—a cavern where crystals shoot up like ancient trees, glowing with a spooky, see-through shine. Called the Cave of Crystals, or Cueva de los Cristales, this underground gem, buried 1,000 feet beneath the Naica Mine, grabbed the world’s eye when 60 Minutes Australia took a rare dive into it for a June 2025 special.
Stumbled upon by accident back in 2000, this cave isn’t just a random hole—it’s proof of Earth’s slow, stubborn creativity, a spot where time and chemistry team up to craft something almost out-of-this-world. Miners Juan and Pedro Sanchez tripped over the cave while digging a vent tunnel for Industrias Peñoles, a mining outfit hunting silver, zinc, and lead in the Naica Mountains. What they hit was a horseshoe-shaped room, packed with massive selenite gypsum crystals.
Sale
LEGO DC Superman Mech vs. Lex Luthor Building Toy – Superman Toy for Kids, Boys and Girls, Ages 6+ -…
- SUPER HERO TOY – Put super hero action with feature-packed figures into kids’ hands with the LEGO DC Superman Mech vs. Lex Luthor toy for boys and…
- SUPERMAN ACTION FIGURE – The set comes with 2 minifigures: Superman with a fabric cape and reversable head showing alternative expressions, and Lex…
- LEGO MECH BUILDING SET – The buildable mech has movable arms, legs and fingers, and its torso opens to reveal a cockpit that can hold the Superman…
These clear-as-glass pillars, built up over half a million years, tower over anyone who steps in, their hazy surfaces bouncing faint light like prisms in a grand church. The find was pure luck, only popping up after pumps drained the mineral-heavy water that kept it hidden. Without the water, the crystals, fragile despite their bulk, started breaking down in the open air.
The heat sits around 136°F, with humidity so close to 100% that your body can’t sweat to cool off. Without gear, you’d be toast in about 10 minutes, overheating or choking as condensation fills your lungs. Explorers, including the 60 Minutes Australia team, lean on fancy cooling suits. Even with that, they’re limited to 15–60 minute trips, and the slippery, wet crystals make every step a dice roll. One wrong slip could mean a deadly fall or a nick to these priceless formations.
About 26 million years ago, magma bubbling under the Naica Mountains warmed up groundwater stuck in limestone cracks. That water, loaded with calcium sulfate, turned into anhydrite. As the magma cooled over eons, the water dropped below 136°F, letting anhydrite break down and reform as gypsum, the soft stuff in drywall and these giant selenite crystals. Geologist Juan Manuel García-Ruiz’s work, shared in the journal Geology, shows they grew at a snail’s pace—about 1.4 nanometers per second—over 500,000 to 1 million years, thriving in a steady, mineral-rich stew.
When mining shut down in 2015, groundwater started creeping back in. By 2017, it was mostly underwater again, locking the crystals in their natural home but slamming the door on most visitors. The 60 Minutes Australia piece, shot before the refill, gave a rare peek into this vanished realm, capturing the crystals’ wild size through journalist Michael Usher and crew’s lens. Paired with speleologist Carlos Lazcano’s insights—who first ventured in—it paints the cave as a place of wonder and danger, where every trip feels like a countdown.
