SOUTH AMERICA, SPAIN, WORLD

The Mystery of the Giant Crystals: How the 36-foot Geode of Pulpí Formed

The Mystery of the Giant Crystals: How the 36-foot Geode of Pulpí Formed

In an abandoned mine in southern Spain, there is a room of pure crystal. 

This is the geode of Pulpí

You have to go to a deep tunnel, get into a ladder in the rocks, and squeeze across a jagged gypsum crystal tube that is barely wide enough for a person. If you make it that far, you’ll be standing inside the world’s largest geode: the Pulpí Geode, a 390-cubic-foot (11 cubic meters) cavity about the size of a cement mixer drum, studded with crystals as clear as ice and sharp as spears on every surface.

While you may have never stood inside a geode, you’ve probably held, or at least seen, one before.

A researcher stands inside the crystal-filled cave known as the Pulpí Geode

“Many people have little geodes in their home,” Juan Manuel García-Ruiz, a geologist at the Spanish National Research Council and co-author of a new paper on the history of the Pulpí Geode, told BBC. “It’s normally defined as an egg-shaped cavity inside a rock, lined with crystals.”

Those crystals can form after water seeps through tiny pores in a rock’s surface, ferrying even tinier minerals into the hollow interior. Depending on the size of the rock cavity, crystals can continue growing for thousands or millions of years, creating caches of amethyst, quartz and many other shiny minerals. 

The crystal columns at Pulpí are made of gypsum — the product of water, calcium sulfate, and lots and lots of time — but not much else has been revealed about them since the geode’s unexpected discovery in 2000.

In a study published in the journal Geology, García-Ruiz and his colleagues attempted to shed some new light on the mysterious cave by narrowing down how and when the geode formed.

García-Ruiz is no stranger to giant crystals. In 2007, he published a study on Mexico’s fantastical Cave of Crystals, a basketball-court-size cavern of gypsum beams as big as telephone poles buried 1,000 feet (300 m) below the town of Naica. Uncovering the history of that “Sistine Chapel of crystals,” as García-Ruiz called it, was made easier by the fact that the crystals were still growing in the mine’s humid bowels. 

At Pulpí, however, the mine was completely dry, and the geode’s crystals had not grown in tens of thousands of years. On top of that, the geode’s gypsum spikes are incredibly pure — so translucent that “you can see your hand through them,” García-Ruiz said.

This means they do not contain enough uranium isotopes to perform radiometric dating, a standard method of analyzing how different versions of elements radioactively decay to date very old rocks. 

“We had no idea what happened,” García-Ruiz said. “So, we were required to make a cartography of the entire mine to understand its very complicated geology.”

The researchers analyzed and radiometrically dated rock samples around the mine for seven years to figure out how the area had changed since its formation hundreds of millions of years ago. The team’s driving question: Where did the calcium sulfate in the Pulpí Geode come from?

Ultimately, the researchers narrowed down the geode’s formation to a window of about 2 million years (not bad for the 4.5-billion-year-old calendar of geologic time). The crystals must be at least 60,000 years old, the team found because that was the youngest age of a bit of carbonate crust growing on one of the largest crystals in the geode. Since the crust is on the outside of a crystal, the crystal below must be even older, García-Ruiz explained.

Meanwhile, the composition of other minerals in the mine suggests that calcium sulfate was not introduced to the area until after an event called the Messinian Salinity Crisis — the near-total emptying of the Mediterranean Sea that is believed to have occurred about 5.5 million years ago. 

Based on the size of the gypsum crystals, it’s likely they started forming less than 2 million years ago, through a very slow-growing process called Ostwald ripening, in which large crystals form through the dissolution of smaller ones, García-Ruiz said. For an everyday example of this process, peer into your freezer.

When ice cream ages past its prime, small ice crystals begin to break away from the rest of the treat. As more time passes, those small crystals lose their shape and recombine into larger crystals, giving the old ice cream a distinctly gritty texture. 

The Pulpí Geode may not be as tasty as ice cream, but merely knowing that magical places like this exist comes with its own sweet satisfaction.

Thanks in part to the research team’s mapping efforts, tourists are now allowed to visit the Pulpí Geode, and García-Ruiz certainly wouldn’t blame you for doing so. Squeezing past the jagged gypsum gateway and into the geode’s cavity for the first time several years ago, García-Ruiz recalled one feeling: “euphoria.”

EUROPE, GERMANY, WORLD

This Fantastical Dragon Bench Was Carved Using A Chainsaw

This Fantastical Dragon Bench Was Carved Using A Chainsaw

Who would have thought that chainsaw can be used as an artist’s tool?  Estonian artist Igor Loskutow is an award-winning master of chainsaw art.

Based in Germany, he’s part of the Husqvarna chainsaw sculpture team, which travels to events across Europe in order to show off their cutting skills.

One of Luskutow’s newest pieces, an incredible dragon bench, is a masterpiece of the art form.

Unlike chisels, knives, and gouges, chainsaws are more difficult to handle and operate (not to mention more dangerous too).

But you’ll be surprised to see what chainsaw sculpture can do. Take a look at this beautiful dragon bench. It’s fairly hard to believe but this elaborate sculpture is actually carved with a chainsaw.

Estonian artist Igor Loskutow is an award winning master of chainsaw art and is part of the Husqvarna chainsaw sculpture team, which travels to events across Europe in order to show off their cutting skills
Estonian artist Igor Loskutow is an award-winning master of chainsaw art and is part of the Husqvarna chainsaw sculpture team, which travels to events across Europe in order to show off their cutting skills

Igor is a member of the Husqvarna chainsaw sculpture team that promotes the brand while showcasing their cutting skills.

Through their impressive wood sculptures, the team aims to advocate the use of chainsaw in the worlds of arts.

A chainsaw is no longer just a mere tool for cutting trees for construction. But it can also be used for creative crafts.

The team has various creations to show off but Igor’s dragon bench is undoubtedly the best among the collection.

You can see the artist’s incredible imagination and skills through his creation. With the sculpture’s realistic pair of wings, highly detailed facial features, and clear-cut tails, it’s certainly not just a bench. It’s a magnificent work of art.

Igor Loskutow uses a chainsaw to carve wooden sculptures such as this incredible dragon bench

Igor made this incredible dragon bench for a local butcher shop. But actually this is not his first dragon bench creation.

In 2017, he created a red-headed dragon bench by utilizing the same technique of using a chainsaw. Amazingly, the natural color of the red-tinged wood gave the dragon’s head a fiery hue.

It looks as if the dragon is about to breathe fire at any moment. Igor’s masterpiece is quickly earning fame right now. But he has been a prominent sculptor way back 2015 when he won the Huskycup World Title.

These behind the scenes images help us understand how the master carver uses the chainsaw to create a dragon bench.

EUROPE, FRANCE, WORLD

Massive, 1,100-Pound Dinosaur Bone Unearthed in France

Massive, 1,100-Pound Dinosaur Bone Unearthed in France

The enormous prehistoric treasures Mother Nature continues to produce, this time in the form of a gigantic thigh bone, once belonging to a massive plant-munching sauropod that roamed the primeval swamps of what is now southwestern France.

A team of paleontologists of the National Museum of Natural History in Paris discovered the huge 6-1/2-foot-long 1,100-pound femur fossil.

Experts consider this 140 million-year-old beefy bone to be a major discovery, and it was found at the fertile paleontological dig site of Angeac-Charente in France. During intense excavation activities.

Uncovered resting in a thick layer of clay, scientists discovered bones from the mammoth creature’s pelvis as well. 

Sauropods were plant-eating dinosaurs with small heads, long slender necks, stump-like feet, and elongated tails that are considered some of the biggest land animals to ever stride upon the Earth.

These quadrupedal herbivores flourished during the Late Jurassic period and were the true kings of the prehistoric age, sometimes growing to a length of up to 130-feet long from nose to tail.

The expert team’s awesome French specimen was particularly well-preserved for a fossil of its size and long ago helped support the 50-60 ton weight of this gentle giant.

“We can see the insertions of muscles and tendons, and scars,” Ronan Allain, a paleontologist at the National History Museum of Paris, told Le Parisien newspaper. “This is rare for big pieces which tend to collapse in on themselves and fragment.”

The bone was discovered nestled in a thick layer of clay. Other bones from the animal’s pelvis were also unearthed.

“This femur is huge! And in an exceptional state of conservation. It’s very moving,” says Jean-François Tournepiche, curator at the Museum of Angouleme (Charente).

“This sauropod bone, 2 m high, was found at Angeac-Charente in a 140-million-year-old marsh lost in the Cognac vineyards and now considered one of the largest dinosaur sites in the world.”

Since 2010, more than 70 scientists from around the world gather each summer to search the soil for dino remains in this productive hunting ground.

So far over 7,500 vertebrate bones representing 45 different species have been unburied and identified, including the first sauropodium femur, plants, footprints, stegosaurs, and even a herd of ostrich dinosaurs.

ASIA, BIBLICAL, ISRAEL, WORLD

3,000-Year-Old Hebrew Inscription Discovered

3,000-Year-Old Hebrew Inscription Discovered

Archeologists at Tel Abel Beth Macaah, a joint dig between Azusa Pacific University and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, have recently exposed a nearly 3,000-year-old jar with the Hebrew inscription.

The ink inscription reads “lbnayo,” meaning “belonging to Benaiyo.” This implies that an Israelite man named Benaiyo lived in Abel Beth Macaah around the 9th century B.C.

This is significant because it is the northern Israelite equivalent of a name found in the Bible (see 2 Samuel 23:20; 1 Chronicles 27:5; 1 Kings 1:8) and indicates that the site may have indeed been an Israelite city at this time (see 2 Samuel 20:29). The name means “Yahweh has built”.

The ink inscription reads “lbnayo,” meaning belonging to Benaiyo, an Israelite name

“Such a discovery advances our understanding of the site and the local region considerably,” said Robert Mullins, Ph.D., co-lead archaeologist of the dig site and chair and professor in Azusa Pacific’s Department of Biblical and Religious Studies.

The jar was found in the lower part of the city, where the team has already found remains from the 9th century, the time of King Ahab.

The new section of the site, Area K, had very little occupation from later periods, which allowed the archaeologists to quickly go below the topsoil and unearth a room containing several broken jars.

The team did not notice the inscription on the jar at first, but when the item was sent for restoration, faint traces of ink on one of the pieces were detected.

The Hebrew script was deciphered through multispectral images taken at the same lab in the Israel Museum that studies the Dead Sea Scrolls. “Any time you find writing on artifacts, that’s important because it can tell us so much about the history of the area,” Mullins said.

One of the other jars had a grape pip and residue in it, indicating the vessel was used to store wine, and the room may have been used for wine storage. Mullins said the team expects to find much more in the area when they resume excavation this summer.

Mullins and the team of archaeologists have excavated ancient artifacts and buildings at the site every summer since 2012. Past finds include silver earrings and ingots, a stone seal, and a small faience head of an ancient king.

Each year, Mullins is accompanied by co-directors Naama Yahalom-Mack, Ph.D. and Nava Panitz-Cohen, Ph.D., from the Institute of Archaeology at Hebrew University, and their team of archaeologists and scholars, including students from APU and partner schools Cornell University, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Asbury Theological Seminary, and Indiana Wesleyan University.

AUSTRALIA, WORLD

Australia wildfires reveal ancient aboriginal aquaculture system built before the Egyptian pyramids

Australia wildfires reveal ancient aboriginal aquaculture system built before the Egyptian pyramids

Further parts of an ancient aquaculture system built thousands of years ago by indigenous people in Victoria Southwest were uncovered by fire.

Last year’s UNESCO World Heritage List was included in the Budj-Bim cultural landscape which includes an elaborate series of stone-lined channels and pools set up by the Gunditjmara to harvest eels.

Parts of the landscape which also features evidence of stone dwellings have been dated back 6,600 years – older than Egypt’s pyramids.

Traditional owners, who inspected the site after a bushfire was brought under control last week, spotted extra sites previously hidden under vegetation, that they believe are part of that aquaculture system. A fire sparked by a lightning strike nearby in late December was later subsumed by another fire ignited nearby, and only brought under control last week, after a mammoth firefighting effort.

It burnt through more than 7,000 hectares of land around Lake Condah and in the Budj Bim National Park, including some parts of the aquaculture system in an area known as the Muldoon trap complex.

Gunditj Mirring Traditional Owners Aboriginal Corporation project manager Denis Rose said when the fire first broke out he was not “too concerned” about how the fire would affect the system.

“There have certainly been many fires here in the thousands of years prior. “Our major concern was the effect after the fire, and we’ve still got some work to do there.

“We were concerned about the trees … particularly those taller trees that are growing in and around some of those fish trap systems and also our associated stone house sites, of [the trees] being weakened and damaged, and potentially falling over and the roots upending some of these ancient stone structures.”

When Rose and other traditional owners returned to the area after the fire, they were amazed by what they saw in the charred landscape.

“It was only maybe 20 meters off the track that we walk in, and it was hidden in the long grass and the bracken fern and other vegetation.

“We’ve noticed that in other parts of the lava flow as well, we’ve come across sites that just haven’t been recorded that have been very close by.”

UNESCO information on the site says the aquaculture system is built from cooled lava flows and is “one of the world’s most extensive and oldest”.

The complex channels, weirs, and damns are thought to have been used to trap, store and harvest kooyang (short-finned eel) for more than 6 thousand years. In the wake of the blaze, a cultural heritage survey will be carried out with input from archaeologists familiar with the site and indigenous rangers. Aerial photography using specialized software will be used to survey the landscape as well.

An aquaculture channel and pond at Budj Bim Cultural Landscape.

Rose said although the find was positive it took place in the sobering context of the destructive fires that continue to burn in other parts of the country.

“We have been extremely fortunate here,” he said. “We’ve had relatively cool burns – certainly nothing like the damage and the devastation over in the eastern parts of Australia.

“[These fires] have burnt the undergrowth, rather than scorching the forest the whole way through.” Firefighters have been managing fire in and around the Budj Bim National Park since the initial blaze that started a few days before Christmas Day.

Bushfires spreading through hills in Victoria.

Forest Fire Management Victoria manager Mark Mellington said firefighters had to work with the area’s rocky terrain, a result of its relatively recent volcanic past. “Earthmoving machinery is one of our typical uses for fire line construction, we look to potentially buy earthmoving equipment parts online so we are able to unearth these areas”, he said.

“[We knew] if we did have fires in that landscape, we would have to use lower-impact control techniques.” Rose praised the way firefighters tackled the blaze, avoiding bringing heavy machinery onto the site. “We certainly acknowledge the wonderful work that they have done in protecting the lava flow and the cultural features on here,” he said.

ASIA, ISRAEL, WORLD

Scientists find that tin found in Israel from 3,000 years ago comes from Cornwall

Scientists find that tin found in Israel from 3,000 years ago comes from Cornwall, England.

Scientists have revealed tin ingots from more than 3,000 years ago found in Israel. They have established that ancient tin ingots found in Israel actually came from what is now modern-day Britain.

Archaeologists believe it shows that tin was transported over long distances about 3000 years ago. Moreover, the researchers may have solved the mystery of the origin of the tin that was so vital for Bronze Age cultures.

The origins of Bronze-age tin ingots have been investigated by researchers from the University of Heidelberg and the Curt Engelhorn Center for Archaeometry in Mannheim. Tin ingots from the Bronze Age discovered by marine archaeologists off the coast of Israel.

According to Phys.org, the researchers used “lead and tin isotope data as well as trace element analysis” to identify where the metal was originally mined. What they found was totally unexpected.

The researchers established that the “3,000-year-old tin ingots found in Israel are actually from Cornwall and Devon” reports the Daily Mail.

These areas are in southwest Britain and were the sites of tin mines until modern times. The experts then analyzed tin ingots that were found in Greece and Turkey and they discovered that they had also come from Devon and Cornwall.

The original discovery of the tin ingots.
Map of Eurasia showing the locations of the tin ingots mentioned in the study (green dots), other tin objects in the eastern Mediterranean and the Near East before 1,000 BC (yellow dots), and major and minor tin deposits.

Based on the findings it seems that the tin was formed into ingots and exported from Devon and Cornwall. Given the limited technology at the time and the lack of roads, the most plausible way for the ingots to have reached modern-day Israel was by sea.

It seems that “the British Isles had developed maritime trade routes with the rest of the world as early as the Bronze Age ” according to the Daily Mail. These trade routes were probably very complex and covered great distances.

Tin was essential for societies in the eastern Mediterranean and there would have been a great demand for high-quality tin, and this would have encouraged the development of international trade routes. This could have led mariners to travel great distances to secure the metal.

The trade-in tin ingots were probably very dangerous but also very profitable. Other materials that were likely traded along these international trade networks were amber, copper, and luxury items. The fact that Bronze Age merchants could trade over vast distances shows that they were proficient sailors.

Bronze age artifacts which tin was vital for production.

The findings of the research are very important and allow us to have new insights into the trade in the distant past. It identifies for the first time the origin of the tin, that was so important in the Bronze Age.

It strongly indicates that international trade was much more advanced, 3,000 years ago, than widely supposed. The results could also guide archaeological research in the future.

EUROPE

Rare 16th Century Gothic Boxwood Carvings Are So Miniature Researchers Used X-Ray To Solve Their Mysteries

Rare 16th Century Gothic Boxwood Carvings Are So Miniature Researchers Used X-Ray To Solve Their Mysteries

The tiny boxwood sculptures are so perfectly crafted that the naked eye cannot see details that reveal their construction.

New research and cutting-edge scientific imaging have revealed that each carving is an intricate three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle.

Knowing how the carvings were made only raises more questions about what motivated their makers. Working without electric light or sophisticated magnification, these artists achieved a virtuosic degree of detail.

When first discovering the intricate carvings in prayer beads and altarpieces, viewers most often respond with a sense of wonder.

This effect fulfills, no doubt, part of the artist’s intention, as well as the desire of the original owner. Fascination is followed by a desire to understand how and by whom these extraordinary and delightful objects were made.

Between 1500 and 1530 wood artists in Flanders and the Netherlands created off of the most exquisite miniature religious wood carvings ever seen.

Known as woodbox carvings there are only 135 of these artifacts known to exist.

These miniature pieces of art are extremely detailed, the details of which were only truly appreciated after these miniature works of arts were examined by Micro-CT scans, advanced 3D analysis software, microscopes, and X-rays.

The inner layers of these tiny carvings are pieced together so well that the joints could only be seen using microscopes and X-rays.

It is a wonder that the original artists of these works were able to craft cravings so finely detailed and involved without the aid of modern equipment. Pins, smaller than a grass seed were used to hold some of the woodwork in place.

However, despite the use of modern technology much of the production process of these carvings remain a mystery due to traces of gold which blocked much of the X-rays “view.”

Part of the draw of these wonderful wood boxes is the fact that much of how they were made remains a true mystery adding to both the intrinsic and artistic value of these little works of art.

These carvings were created out of a demand for quality portable religious carvings in Europe prior to the reformation period.

However, once attempts were underway to reform both the Protestant and Catholic church the need for miniature accessories were no longer in high demand.

Researchers took these 500-year-old miniature boxwood carvings to the lab to find out their secrets
They think these miniatures were made between 1500 and 1530 in Flanders or the Netherlands
The human eye isn’t able to analyze details this tiny
So researchers used micro-CT scanning and Advanced 3D Analysis Software
To find out how intricate the pieces really are
They found joints in the inner layers so tiny that only a microscope or an X-ray can detect them
And pins, smaller than a grass seed
But even the advanced technology couldn’t see everything
Because traces of gold and other decoration materials conceal the X-ray views
The miniatures were a result of a rising new social class in Europe that created a demand for these high-quality portable religious carvings

EUROPE, SCOTLAND, WORLD

Medieval Padlock Discovered in Scotland

Medieval Padlock Hints at Prosperity of Scotland’s Pictish Farmers

In olden times, padlocks were sufficient to safeguard a person’s treasures—and even after more than a millennium underground, some of these handy artifacts still hold their fair share of secrets under lock and key.

Officials excavating the Lair archeological site in Glenshee, Scotland, have uncovered two medieval padlocks likely used by Pictish locals between the 6th and 11th centuries, reports Alison Campsie for the Scotsman.

In a recent Archaeopress monograph, the team is classified as “security equipment”, the locks probably had a benign purpose, protecting the contents of chests or valuables behind doors. Then again, maybe not: As the researchers write in the paper, “Use to secure animals or people is also possible.”

A reconstruction of the homestead in Glenshee

Nestled in Scotland’s uplands, Lair was once thought to house the remains of low-status Picts—a group of Celtic-speaking people who first appeared during the Late British Iron Age—struggling to make ends meet on the fringes of true civilization.

But the findings of the research team, led by Perth and Kinross Heritage Trust Director David Strachan, reveal that the long-gone community at Lair was actually a permanent prosperous settlement, bustling with successful farmers who thrived on livestock and grain crops for almost 500 years.

“What we have got here is a picture of every day, of the upland farmers and how they lived,” Strachan tells Campsie. “We are beginning to get a new picture of the Picts as a stratified society.”

At the very least, the community had enough wealth and class hierarchy to garner some of its member’s valuables—and instill a healthy suspicion of thievery, says Strachan. That explains the two partial barb-spring padlocks unearthed from the site.

When whole, the pair would have each consisted of three components: a case, a U-shaped bolt secured into the case with barbed springs, and a key that would have unlocked the bolt when inserted into the case, according to a statement.

The front of one of the barb-spring padlocks recovered from the Pictish settlement at Lair in Glenshee, Scotland
The back of one of the barb-spring padlocks recovered from the Pictish settlement at Lair in Glenshee, Scotland

Barb-spring padlocks first came into use in Britain during the Iron Age, sticking around for centuries before falling out of fashion sometime during the 16th century.

Despite their origins in the region, though, the locks themselves weren’t always ironclad: One of the two recovered from Lair survived only as a broken bolt.

What exactly the lock was protecting (or restraining) remains a mystery.

But several other artifacts collected from the site, including an engraved spinning whorl and a rare green glass bead, hint at the objects the Picts once cherished—and that still holds value for humans today.

The padlock and other finds were made during excavations at Lair

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