Surveying in the Naica Caves

[pcktfullofokenite]

Some of you may know that I do surveying work. I occasionally get periodicals from my boss like American Surveyor and POB, most people in any engineering field would know what these magazines are. Anyway, February's article in American Surveyor featured a series of articles about about scientists studying the Naica caves in Mexico using laser mapping devices to create 3d maps of the interior of these caves. The Naica caves have the most spectacular growths of selenite in the world and the article has several pictures of these selenite crystals.

www.amerisurv.com/PDF/TheAmericanSurveyor_CavesOfNaica_February2009.pdf

[writerman2255]

Thanks for the link. Pretty intense!

Love and Light, Tom.

errr. . . .does that mean that somewhere in the earth, there are emeralds that size?

[CKB69]

I do regular 'ole compass/clino. / tape surveys of caves .
Lidar is not that new , but given the hostile environment of the Naica Caves , it must be a godsend for the researchers .
It would take thousands of man hours to get that much data and process it by more traditional methods .


" errr. . . .does that mean that somewhere in the earth, there are emeralds that size? "

There may well be emeralds that big . Of course they are likely lurking in a place where the temps and pressures are 1,000x those of Naica . You dig , I'll take the pictures . ;D

[pcktfullofokenite]

I actually did a little surveying for the owners of the Morefield mine in Amelia. It was really just an excuse to get a mine tour but I got to use compass and tape and a theodolite down there. It wasn't easy work, it was cold inside and out of the mine. I ended up wet and being that I'm tall I hit my head several times on the ceiling.

[hope]

I saw this visit by the scientists on TV not too long ago. It was on National Georgraphic TV.

Hope