Giant Crystal Caves Create an " Ice Palace"

  In hellish conditions , explorers find biological mysteries, "alien" environments. It looks like Superman's Fortress of solitude and is nearly as hard to get into , but that hasn't stopped explorers from uncovering new secrets in and around Mexico's deep , deadly hot cave of Crystals . Outfitted with ice-cooled suits , teams have found biogological mysteries and parallels  with other planets. The  "Ice Palace," an unexplored cavern is lined with rare crystal formations. The explorers are just in time too. Parts of the complex may soon be returned to their natural , submerged states.

     A thousand feet (304 meter) underground , the Cave of Crystals (pictures above) is just  one of a series of glittering caverns  beneath the Chihuahuan Desert's Naica mountain. In the two-story tall, football field size cave of Crystals, enormous beams of gypsum -- among the largest freestanding crystals in the world -- sprout haphazardly , sporting the sharp, geometric appearance that scientists call euhedral.

     The jewel -like effect makes the giant crystals truly unique , according to John Rakovan , a mineralogist at Miami University of Ohio , who was not involved in the project. "When crystals get larger and larger , they become less euhedral , typically, and more rocklike. Scientists didn't think it was possible  to get  large crystals that are so morphologiaclly perfect before the Cave of Crystals  discovery," Rakovan said.

     The translucent columns also resemble giant pillers of ice  but are warmed by superheated air leaking up from underground magna chambers.  The combination of  90 percent humidity and a temperature  of 118  degrees Fahrenheit (48 degrees Celsius ) inside the cave can kill an unprepared human in just 30 mintues. "It's a deadly and magical environment all at the same time," said Penelope Boston, an astrobiologist  and cave scientist.

Ice-Cooled Suits required:

     Exploring the Naica caves requires more than just industrial strengh water pumps . Scientists entering the complex in 2008 and 2009 wore custom-made , 45-pound (25-kiograms) cooling suits that extend mission times from 15 mintues  to an hour. Each suit contains several ice-filled compartments as well as respirators connected to ice-filled backpacks , which send cool air to the wearer's lungs. Masks  protects the eyes,, which can scorch in the cave's heat. "It's funny , because when you look at  the pictures of us in there in the suits , it looks like we're in an ice chamber , but it's just the reverse," said  Boston , of the  New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology.

Microbial Mystery in Cave of Crystals :

     Though the calling card of the horseshoe-shaped Cave of Crystals may be its massive mineral formations , some of its biggest surprises are literally microscopic . In 2008 a team of scientists , including New Mexico Tech's Boston, investigated the cave and found microbial life living in tiny air pockets in the crystals. In December 2009 Boston returned to the cave with another team. From pools of water that hadn't been present during her first trip, the scientists collected bacteria as well as viruses that prey on bacteria -- something that was suspected but had not been comfirmed on the first expedition.

     Viruses, after all, are among the "primary predators of bacteria," explained Danielle Winget, a biologist at the Univeristy of British Columbia . Sure enough , the team found as many as 200 million viruses in a single drop of cave of Crystals water. But the virus finding was perhaps not the expedition's most surprising microbial discovery. Analysis of bacterial DNA from the Cave of Crystals showed that the tiny life-forms are  related to microbes living in other extreme environments around the world , including caves in South Africa and Australia. "We're picking up these patterns of similarities  in places that are geographically widely separated," Boston said.  "We don't really understand how it is that the organisms in a hydrothermal vent in Greece or a deep gold mine in South Africa are related  to organisms that we find in a  subsurface cave" at Naica , Suttle  said.  "It's hard to imagine some kind of underground [network] connecting South Africa with Mexico."

Alien underworlds :

     As mind-boggling as the idea of a possibly globe-spanning , underground bacterial network may be , some scientists see potential links between the  Cave of Crystals and even farther-flung hot spots -- for example , extreme environments on Mars and other worlds. Though Martian geology might be more static overall than Earth's , "there may be residual pockets of geothermal activity that could provide a zone where water could be liguid and where chemically reduced gases from below  can percolate up and act as a nutrient source," as in the Cave of Crystals, Boston said. Poirier, the Ontario astrophysicist , agreed. "For Mars , our best bet of finding life is to look underground," Poirier said. "So there are a lot of parallels between humans exploring subterranean caves looking for microbes and Martian exploration in the future.  If the caves on Mars are anything like the caverns beneath Naica mountain, future Martian explores will have to be trained to ignore the strange sights around them.
"When you are in the caves , you're overwhelmed by the [harsh] conditions , but you are also overwhelmed by the beauty, and it's hard to maintain your focus," Boston said. "Even if scalding water submerges that beauty tomorrow , the caves' scientific  potential should live on, thanks to the multitude of samples already collected."

Well now, we not only have to watch the skies, but scope beneath the ground also .