Susan Granger’s review of “Forces of Nature” (IMAX)
With the unprecedented total of four hurricanes hitting Florida this season and the crater floor of Mount St. Helens steadily rising with no estimate on when the magma may reach the surface, there couldn’t be a better time for “Forces of Nature,” the new, educational IMAX film at the Maritime Aquarium in Norwalk. Narrated by Kevin Bacon, this documentary covers a triptych of natural disasters: volcanoes, earthquakes and tornadoes. As the introductory simulated imagery indicates, billions of years after its creation, the Earth retains its volatile atmosphere. Actually, more than 80% of the Earth’s surface is volcanic, with close to 500 active volcanoes on land and hundreds more under the sea. Back in 1995, a once-dormant volcano on the Caribbean island of Monserrat exploded, sending pyroclastic flows racing down the mountain. And as the sky turned black and hot ash spewed 10-miles high, intrepid aerial photographers were able to chronicle the violence on the 70 mm film needed for the giant-screen format. Now, Dr. Marie Edmonds, a volcanologist, keeps watch over Soufriere Hills, utilizing an arsenal of spectroscopic instruments to collect data that could predict future eruptions from the volcanic chamber – and save lives. Around the globe in Turkey, geologists are studying a series of earthquake fault lines that increasingly threaten the ancient city of Istanbul. Dr. Ross Stein, a geophysicist and earthquakes hazards expert with the U.S. Geological Survey, studies clues he discovers in the Byzantine Church of Hagia Sophia. He focuses on stress interactions, studying how a single quake, like the 1999 Izmit disaster on the North Anatolian Fault, may promote subsequent shocks at some sites while inhibiting them at others. Globally, there are nearly a half million earthquakes each year and they’re widespread in the United States. Only four states – Florida, Iowa, North Dakota and Wisconsin – have had no detectable quakes between 1975 and 1995. And along “Tornado Alley” in midwestern America, Dr. Joshua Wurman and his fellow “tornado chasers,” riding in trucks equipped with huge Dopplar radar dishes, are trying to discover exactly how these unpredictable yet extremely violent storms are “born.” The largest radar-documented tornado occurred in Oklahoma on May 4, 1999, and at one point measured more than a mile wide. And despite our improved storm warnings, tornadoes still kill an average of 60 people a year in the United States. In this National Geographic/Graphic Films collaboration, documentarian George Casey not only captures the excitement, danger and enormity of these catastrophic events in immense images but also profiles three scientists who are attempting to forecast or predict when and where the next natural disasters will occur. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Forces of Nature” is an intense, challenging 7. It’s a unique, in-your-face science lesson about Mother Nature.
