The largest natural crystals ever found on Earth. Nearly a thousand feet down in the Naica silver-lead mine in Chihuahua, miners cutting a new drift in 2000 broke into a chamber filled with beams of clear selenite (gypsum) up to twelve metres long and weighing tons, grown over hundreds of thousands of years in mineral-rich water heated by the magma below. It is one of the wonders of the mineral world, but a lethal one: 58 degrees and near 100 percent humidity, survivable for only minutes even in a cooled suit. The mine has since flooded and reclaimed it. This pin honours a place almost no one can ever stand in.
Mexico
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