Volcanoes of the Deep Sea {Running Time: 40 minutes}

Far below the ocean waves is an incredible place teeming with life, but few people have seen it... until now. With the Mayborn Planetarium and Space Theater’s premiere of “Volcanoes of the Deep Sea,” on Friday, August 1, you can be there for the first time. This giant screen science adventure plunges the audience 12,000 feet deep into the ocean for an unprecedented experience through this vast and little-explored dimension of our planet which remains one of the greatest mysteries on Earth.

The film follows a team of scientists as they dive to research mysterious hydrothermal vents – communities of life thriving in the most extreme environment on Earth. And as the dive unfolds, the film and the scientists reveal the fantastic diversity of the deep: its strange communities of organisms, its shipwreck gardens, bioluminescent creatures and awesome giant predators. This is the first extensively lit views of such vent habitants ever seen by the public.
Scientific investigation of deep-sea vents has yielded astounding discoveries, opened up important new avenues for science and begun to transform our understanding of life on this planet and others. The discoveries include dense communities of creatures fueled not by sunlight, but by Earth's own heat and chemistry; microbes that thrive in water hot enough to boil a lobster; and organisms that have survived essentially unchanged through tens of millions of years of turbulent planetary history.

The film further explores the planet's marine depths as never before, putting audiences into the most alien and hostile environments on Earth and into contact with the planet's strangest creatures, dramatic landscapes and phenomena. This real-life tale of mystery chronicles scientists search for an animal that may be one of Earth's greatest survivors—an ancient species that is decorating the deep sea floor with its strange hexagonal trademark. In pursuit of this elusive animal and an understanding of its mysterious habitat, the film propels audiences from the dramatic sea cliffs of Spain, through two oceans, into deep-sea sites dense with astounding life forms and even into the far reaches of space.

“Volcanoes of the Deep Sea” delivers the first high-fidelity experience of the great ocean depths. Through an extraordinary visual and scientific journey, it reveals the unique characteristics of the greatest mountain chain on Earth, its connection to our tumultuous, changing planet and its profound and powerful influence on the life of this world.