It looks like you're using an Ad Blocker.
Please white-list or disable AboveTopSecret.com in your ad-blocking tool.
Thank you.
Some features of ATS will be disabled while you continue to use an ad-blocker.
An enormous shaft of sunlight plunges into the cave like a waterfall. The hole in the ceiling through which the light cascades is unbelievably large, at least 300 feet across. The light, penetrating deep into the cave, reveals for the first time the mind-blowing proportions of Hang Son Doong. The passage is perhaps 300 feet wide, the ceiling nearly 800 feet tall: room enough for an entire New York City block of 40-story buildings. There are actually wispy clouds up near the ceiling.
Originally posted by LeLeu
But I do believe there are large expances of cavern systems that could run on
for miles underground, like this one
April 9, 2007—Geologist Juan Manuel García-Ruiz calls it "the Sistine Chapel of crystals," but Superman could call it home.
A sort of south-of-the-border Fortress of Solitude, Mexico's Cueva de los Cristales (Cave of Crystals) contains some of the world's largest known natural crystals—translucent beams of gypsum as long as 36 feet (11 meters).
How did the crystals reach such superheroic proportions?
In the new issue of the journal Geology, García-Ruiz reports that for millennia the crystals thrived in the cave's extremely rare and stable natural environment. Temperatures hovered consistently around a steamy 136 degrees Fahrenheit (58 degrees Celsius), and the cave was filled with mineral-rich water that drove the crystals' growth.
Modern-day mining operations exposed the natural wonder by pumping water out of the 30-by-90-foot (10-by-30-meter) cave, which was found in 2000 near the town of Delicias (Chihuahua state map). Now García-Ruiz is advising the mining company to preserve the caves.
"There is no other place on the planet," García-Ruiz said, "where the mineral world reveals itself in such beauty."
Originally posted by zorgon
As to that expedition to check out the cave, you volunteering? I have a few others ready to go
Originally posted by Drezden
It looks like one of the bottomless pits in skyrim.
Originally posted by LeLeu
The thoughts of a secret Nazi base have always fired up my imagination.
(deleted text)
So lava tubes sound like a good idea if your thinking about building yourself a secret Nazi base
or a Lunar one for that matter. If your too lazy to do so like me, then you can pretend!
Originally posted by Razimus
The hollow earth cult was disbanded in the 70's I heard from a TV show, I believe it was 'In Search Of' hosted by Leonard Nimoy, apparently de-evolution is in full effect because the extinct followers of this theory seem to be re-appearing. I'm just not a fan of the theory, the crust is clearly hollow in some places, but some over the top journey to the center of the earth type stories are not enough to convince the logical thinkers.
Plate tectonic theory had its beginnings in 1915 when Alfred Wegener proposed his theory of "continental drift." ...
Wegener's ideas were very controversial because he didn't have an explanation for why the continents moved, just that there was observational evidence that they had...
As years passed, more and more evidence was uncovered to support the idea that the plates move constantly over geologic time...
Following World War II, even more evidence was uncovered which supports the theory of plate tectonics...
Since its emergence in the 1960's, plate tectonic theory has gained wide-spread acceptance as the model of Earth processes.
Originally posted by Starchild23
reply to post by LeLeu
These are not guarantees or even indicative of a hollow earth. All it says is that there are quite possibly a number of large subterranean caverns riddling the belly of Antarctica...which is a long way from being a great big space in the center of our planet.
Let's have an explorative team figure it out, instead of just jumping to conclusions.