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Journey into amazing caves

Threat advisory: High - High risk of entertaining activities

Movie propaganda

No light, no air, no room for error.

All over our planet there are landscapes that hold caves beneath them. Challenged by the underground frontier and inspired by the secrets it may yield, cavers share a passion for exploration. Journey into amazing caves follows Doctor Hazel Barton and Nancy Aulenbach on an adventure to explore caves in canyon walls, in glaciers and beneath the rainforests of Mexico.

In these unusual and hostile places, Hazel, a microbiologist, searches for tiny organisms that somehow survive there. The micro-organisms that live in environments with no light, few nutrients and, in the case of glaciers, locked in ice for hundreds or thousands of years, have developed unique survival tactics and lethal weapons against other organisms that compete for the same, few nutrients. Hazel studies this subterranean life in hopes it may point to new drugs or antibiotics to fight human illness.

Narrated by Liam Neeson, music by the Moody Blues.

Cinematic intelligence sources

Journey into amazing caves official movie site
Cave-speak: a glossary
A brief history of humans and caves
Studios and distributors:

Imax

Intelligence analyst

Special Agent Matti

Theatrical report

Spelunkin'!

Journey into amazing caves is more than a straight-to-Imax movie, it's a documentary that manages to bring the beauty of the natural world to the biggest of big screens. The USA stuff is pretty boring (they have to have it in there because Americans don't like films that aren't filled with Americans) and the weakest of the three caving areas, but the ice caves and cenotes are both cool (no pun intended) and mesmerising. Blue is probably the world's favourite colour and the chilly depths of the Arctic ice are awesome (See below).

As an educational tool Journey into amazing caves is not all that educational (it's more like a commercial for investing in holes in the ground): you'll already know half this stuff from watching docounemtaries on TV. There is also a transgression of the documentary filmmaker's first rule: don't talk about someone going boldly where no-one has gone before when there's a camera operator in front of them recording everything for the folks back home.

Nonetheless, this is a cool film that's worth the price of admission. And if you're claustrophobic, Journey into amazing caves will make a great horror flick.

Security censorship classification

Surveillance time

42 minutes

Not for public release in Australia before date

Film: 28 February 2002

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Cave-speak: A glossary

Cave: A natural cavity big enough for a person to enter, commonly formed by solution of carbonate rock in karst, but also formed by processes of wind, fluvial erosion or collapse. Caves may be air-filled or water-filled. Ice caves can occur in glaciers. Lava caves form when molten rock flows from an erupting volcano, creating tubes or passageways that remain after the lava drains away.
Caver: Someone who explores caves. Once called “spelunkers,” today the word caver is preferred.
Calcite: Also called calcium carbonate, calcite is the principal mineral compound in limestone.
Cenote (see-no-tay): A water-filled, often perfectly round sinkhole found in the Yucatán jungle. The ancient Mayans feared the cenotes, believing they were sacred gateways to an underworld inhabited by dark spirits.
Column: A spelaeothem that spans from floor to ceiling.
Extremophile: Micro-organisms that use unique strategies for survival in extreme environments.
Halocline: The place where sea water meets fresh water, resulting in a unique shimmering interface.
Karst: A terrain characterised by sinkholes due to the greater solubility of such carbonate rocks as limestone, dolomite and magnesite.
Limestone: A rock formed in shallow seas from marine deposits (such as shells and skeletons of small sea-creatures). Most of the world's caves are limestone caves.
Sinkhole: A hole in the ground that forms where underground rock collapses; sinkholes can provide entrance to a cave.
Spelaeology: The scientific study of caves.
Spelaeothem: A rock formation created by the dripping of mineral-rich water in a cave.
Stalactite: A spelaeothem that hangs down from a cave ceiling.
Stalagmite: A spelaeothem that builds up from a cave floor.
Troglobite: An animal adapted to living its whole life inside a cave.
Tyrolean traverse: A rope technique that allows a climber or caver to cross a horizontal expanse on a rope suspended between two cliffs.

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A brief history of humans and caves

Throughout human history, caves have been used as sacred Shaman's hideaways to scientific laboratories. Among the many clever human uses of caves throughout history:

Cave entrances served as “living rooms” for early human ancestors;
Earth's first artists used cave walls as canvases for their paintings;
Caves have been used as temples and as ceremonial sites - supposedly because they link the earthly world to the spiritual world below;
Caves have always been a treasure trove for finding ancient marine and terrestrial fossils. Palaeontologists have found remains of woolly mammoth, mastodons, sabre tooth cats and giant sloth, among others, in caves;
Before refrigerators, caves were used to store fruits and vegetables in cool, constant temperatures;
Long before cellars, caves were used for the aging of cheese and alcoholic beverages;
Caves have served as hospitals for those with respiratory disorders due to their constant atmosphere;
Caves have been a frequent hideaway for smugglers, counterfeiters and moonshine makers;
Speak-easies were set up in caves during the USA prohibition on alcohol and dance halls were set up in caves during WW II;
In some Buddhist societies, it is traditional for a monk to live for several years alone in a cave;
Archaic and woodland indians sent their bravest warriors into caves to mine epsomite and gypsum;
Through the late 1940s, caves were mined for guano, or bat faeces, used for fertiliser;
Today, caves are a primary resource for scientific research among microbiologists, environmentalists, geologists, hydrologists, anthropologists and palaeontologists among others;