Volcanoes of the Deep Sea opens Friday at Carnegie

2003′s Volcanoes of the Deep Sea opens tomorrow in Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Science Center’s Omnimax Theater. Directed by Stephen Low, the film follows a team of scientists as they dive to research mysterious hydrothermal vents on the mid-ocean ridge.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette offers this preview:

“Volcanoes of the Deep Sea” looks like an elaborate sci-fi adventure filled with bizarre alien life forms and mind-bending special effects. But it’s science fact, as well as a hypnotic visual foray into an unknown world.

In “Volcanoes,” the IMAX camera takes viewers to the sunless depths of the ocean. The large-format camera has a long history of going where few have gone before, but this is uncharted territory, for scientists and viewers.

. . .

The film explores underwater volcanic sites and hydrothermal vents in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. At more than 12,000 feet below the surface, it’s a world that even most deep-sea divers and submarine crews have never experienced.

Biologist Richard Lutz, the film’s science director, describes “Volcanoes” as “a Hubble telescope for inner space.” The parallel to space exploration is apt: This is a world as alien as any other in our solar system. The best segments fly through what look like landscapes from another planet — columns of hardened volcanic rock, swarms of bizarre creatures glowing in the reflected light.

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