Nature Takes Audience on a Wild Ride

by: Josh Marks

Imagine watching a volcano erupt, an earthquake shake the ground and a tornado barrel towards you on a 7-story high by 90-feet wide screen. “Forces of Nature,” a new documentary playing at the California Science Center IMAX Theater, showcases these three natural disasters and the scientists who are trying to understand these events to improve prediction and ultimately save lives.

The recent devastating South Asian Tsunami and on a smaller scale the La Conchita mudslide here in California make the scenes of destruction seem eerily familiar.
The images of the natural phenomena are visually spectacular, with the IMAX screen making the scenes more vivid. Computerized simulations help explain the science behind it. Fortunately you don’t have to be a geophysicist to understand why volcanoes, tornadoes and earthquakes occur.

The volcanic eruption in the film takes place on the Caribbean island of Montserrat as Dr. Marie Edmonds, a British volcanologist, tries to predict future explosions by analyzing gas emissions.

The movie then takes us to Istanbul, Turkey where an actual geophysicist, Dr. Ross Stein of the U.S. Geological Survey, studies the North Anatolian Fault. Footage is shown of the 1999 Izmit, Turkey earthquake which claimed the lives of 17,000 people and injured thousands more. The high death toll was due to shoddy architecture in newer buildings. Amazingly, as these new buildings crumbled, mosques built centuries ago were still standing. Dr. Stein, in addition to trying to figure out why these ancient structures withstood the earthquakes, has formulated an earthquake-progression model which predicts stress sites along fault lines.

Finally we are taken to “Tornado Alley” in the Midwest where Dr. Joshua Wurman tracks down tornadoes with Doppler radar trucks to attempt to understand why they form so forecasters can warn people ahead of time.

“Forces of Nature” is a National Geographic film which was funded in part by the National Science Foundation and is narrated by Kevin Bacon. It is a very good film –educational and entertaining. The IMAX Theater at The California Science Center is located at 700 State Drive in Los Angeles (in Exposition Park near the Coliseum and the University of Southern California). Call (213) 744-7400 for more information or visit www.californiasciencecenter.org.