All language subtitles for IMAX - Journey Into Amazing Caves - 2001 - 1080i MPEG2 DD5.1-CtrlHD

� dona nobis pacem �

Narrator: our universe seems
a barren place,

Full of extreme conditions,
hostile to living things.

Our own planet has
such extreme environments,

Places where, until recently,

We believed nothing
could survive.

[ choir vocalizing ]

[ wind whistling ]

Yet life is tenacious
if it can just get a foothold.

We call the tiny organisms

Living in such inhospitable
places "extremophiles,"

Microbes which thrive
in the harshest of conditions.

Caves, long dismissed
as dark and lifeless deserts,

Turn out to be ideal homes
for these hardy life-forms.

Their scientific potential
appears vast.

� dona nobis pacem �

This underground frontier holds
an irresistible attraction

For two courageous young women.

[ choir vocalizing ]

The arizona desert --
bone-dry and scorching hot.

Perfect for extremophiles.

Nancy aulenbach and hazel barton
are part of a small team

Exploring unmapped caves
near the grand canyon.

The rest of the team,
gordon brown and scott davis,

Search for other caves.

Hazel and nancy
are almost certainly

The first cavers
to explore this cave.

To get here, they rappelled
300 feet in 112-degree heat.

Ooh!

Listen, I'm gonna throw you
this rope.

It'll help
pull you in, okay?

You ready?
Mm-hmm.

Oh!

Nancy aulenbach, from georgia,

Is the team's
technical specialist.

I'm gonna let go
of the belay line.

As an instructor
in cave-rescue techniques,

Nancy's rope skills
are finely honed.

You got it?
Yeah.

At 98 1/2 pounds,
she is well-suited

For rescuing cavers stuck
in very tight places.

Aulenbach: in unexplored caves,
we always do surveys.

Later,
my husband will use our data

To draw the very first map
of this cave.

He's a caver.

In fact, I come
from an entire family of cavers.

28.4 feet.

Narrator: hazel barton,
a native of England,

Has a phd in microbiology.

Okay, I'm getting positive
60 degrees, right?

Aulenbach: I found crystals,
which only form in still water.

This cave probably formed
millions of years ago.

Narrator: while nancy studies
the cave wall

With a magnifying glass,

Hazel collects samples
of tiny organisms

Which could help cure
serious diseases.

Barton: you're never sure
what speck of dust

Might contain the secret
to new medicine

That could save lives.

Aulenbach:
often, the most dangerous part

Of exploring caves
is just getting to them.

Gordon will vouch for that.

[ choir vocalizing ]

Aulenbach: what turns this river
so blue is dissolved limestone.

The limestone is
gradually redeposited

To form travertine dams,

Which are first cousin to
the stalagmites we see in caves.

Hey.
Hey.

How's it going?
Great.

You guys get up there?
Oh, yeah.

Aulenbach: all this blue water
and travertine

Is visible proof that caves are
forming upstream right now.

I got time off from my job
as a teacher's assistant

Because I promised
to e-mail field reports

Back to my second-grade
students.

Here's how hazel described her
research to my second-graders.

Barton: the tiny organisms,
called microbes, live in caves,

Might contain special chemicals

That we could make
medicine from.

You know, caves are not only
a place to visit,

They're a place where you can do
a lot of research.

You can survey, you can do
biological inventories,

You can find new species that
people have never seen before.

Barton: I look for medical use
for organisms everywhere,

Even in scum ponds.

After all, a rather useful
medicine called penicillin

Was found in the same mold
that grows on rotten cheese.

Oh, you know,
it's just more boogers,

The smellier the better.

Girl: � I know
you're out there somewhere �

Barton:
while we were on navajo land,

Nancy and I heard
about a medicine man

Making a sand painting.

Through these sand paintings,
the navajo believe

That they can tap into
the healing powers of the earth.

But, of course,
that's what I do, too --

I go deep into the earth
in search of unknown cures.

[ "I know you're out there
somewhere" plays ]

[ laughter ]

Aulenbach: we're using kayaks
on this expedition

Because the river is
a good vantage point

For spotting unexplored caves
on the cliff walls.

As my husband, brent, says,

"if you aren't wet,
you aren't caving."

� 1, 2, 3! �

[ moody blues' "ride my see-saw"
plays ]

� ride, ride my see-saw �

� take this place �

� on this trip, just for me �

� ride, take a free ride �

� take my place �

� have my seat, it's for free �

� I worked like a slave
for years �

� sweat so hard
just to end my fears �

� not to end my life
a poor man �

� but by now,
I know I should have run �

� whoo-ooh �

[ all cheering ]

� ride my see-saw �

Narrator: some rivers run
through caves for miles

Before bursting
onto the surface,

But that's of little concern
as you approach a precipice,

Wondering,
"is this a good idea?"

Unlike canyons, which are carved
by fast-moving rivers,

Caves are formed by a subtler
but equally effective force.

Most limestone caves start

When groundwater picks up carbon
dioxide in the air and soil.

As the mildly acidic water
leaks through cracks

In the earth's crust,

It dissolves
the surrounding rock,

Leaving pockets, caves.

That's how a chamber
300 feet high

Can be carved from solid stone
in less than a million years.

[ choir vocalizing ]

Aulenbach:
walls are decorated

When trickling water
deposits dissolved stone

To form stalactites,
stalagmites,

And other flowstone formations.

Since the purest water on earth
is found deep in pristine caves,

Sometimes we use rafts
to explore,

Which cause less contamination
than swimming.

Cave decorations are as delicate
as fine crystal,

Easily shattered
and impossible to repair.

That's why good cavers
are trained

To move gently underground.

Barton: nancy,
I've still got you on belay.

Narrator: when water leaves
a residue of minerals,

They crystallize
and gradually build up

To become delicate
cave formations.

As hazel and her colleagues
in the lab have found,

Extremophiles are tough.

Barton:
we suspect that

Because of the environment
in which they live,

Extremophiles produce
potent chemical weapons.

If we can isolate
these chemical compounds,

We can use them
in the fight against disease.

Narrator: only the hardiest
extremophiles could survive

Deep in the ice
of the north pole.

To collect them,
hazel and nancy have joined

An arctic expedition
to greenland.

Greenland's ice cap is massive.

If melted, it would raise
the world's oceans 18 feet.

[ shouting indistinctly ]

Aulenbach:
when I first saw camp and saw
these little, tiny specks

Out in the middle of nowhere,
you know, I started thinking,

"we're gonna be here
for a while."

Narrator: the expedition is led
by frenchman janot lamberton.

Janot has gone deeper into ice
caves than anyone else alive.

In summer, melting ice creates
raging rivers,

Which plunge into the caves,
cutting them deeper and deeper.

Aulenbach: heat from the sun
can weaken the ice.

These jumbled blocks
were once the roof of a cave,

Just like the one
we're about to venture into.

We started early

So we wouldn't be inside
when the roof collapsed.

Okay.

[ lamberton shouting
indistinctly ]

Okay.

So...

Are we secure,
your harness?

Yes.

You use your crampons
very well.

Once I dropped into the cave,
I focused on how awesome it was

To be one of the first people
to ever see that place.

The ice is alive, and you could
hear it creak and groan

As it all inches
very slowly toward the sea.

Narrator:
the ice is a data bank,

Storing centuries of information

For the team's glaciologist,
dr. Luc moreau.

The ice is a memory
of the climate.

You see different layer --

And white layer
represent the winter,

So we can calculate
the age of the ice here.

Narrator: a glacier is truly
a time capsule.

The deeper you go,

The more the seasonal layers
are compressed.

Only 60 feet down,
hazel can collect samples

Which fell as snow
centuries ago.

So far, we've found bunches
of different bacteria --

Gram-negatives,
gram-positive, cocci,

Spirochetes, all kinds
of cool-looking stuff.

The thing is,

There's not much I can do
with them here in the field.

The only thing I can do
is freeze them down

And take them back with me.

Narrator: the bacteria
hazel wants most

Lie buried beneath
500 feet of ice.

The team cannot descend
that deep

Until there is a four-day cold
snap to stop the flow of water.

They soon get their wish.

Aulenbach: the other day,
it was minus 12 centigrade

With a windchill
of minus 26 centigrade,

Which is colder than a freezer.

So it was very cold,

Bitterly cold.

Big time.

Too cold to be pleasant.

Aulenbach:
waiting for the water to
freeze up is the hardest part,

Because we're out
in the middle of an ice cap.

There's not a whole lot to do.

This is definitely
a caver's haircut.

� we can run �

� we can ride �

� we can fly �

Narrator:
to prepare for the deep descent,

�<
nancy has to learn to measure
the movement of the ice

As the cave walls
are slowly pushed in

By the tremendous weight
of the glacier.

Janot decided to risk
perhaps his deepest descent ever

To get samples for hazel.

Only days ago,
this was a deadly waterfall.

The deeper you go, the more
unstable the ice becomes.

Janot has seen ice boulders

Burst from the walls
like cannon shots.

10-foot spears can break loose
without warning,

So he purges the walls
of loose ice

To protect the team members
who will follow.

[ man chanting indistinctly ]

Sometimes, to set ice screws
in the safest spot,

Janot turns himself
into a human pendulum.

Assisting janot on the descent,

Luc is concerned
about dripping water

Icing up the rope at 200 feet.

Aulenbach:
I've rappelled into hundreds of
vertical pits around the world,

But never anything like this.

[ ice cracks ]

Ice adds an element
of unpredictable risk.

[ men speaking indistinctly ]

Narrator:
at just over 500 feet,

Janot grows
increasingly concerned

By the instability of the ice.

This is the second-deepest ice
cave janot has ever explored.

As hazel rappels,

Janot radios up and warns her
not to descend too far.

Instead, he will bring her
the deepest sample.

A large block of ice above janot
seems ready to break loose.

He wastes no time in collecting
the samples for hazel

Before starting the long climb
back out.

[ choir vocalizing ]

Perhaps the microbes
janot risked his life for

Will one day offer
a cure for disease,

But it will take years of
research to unlock that secret.

But I found a few weeks
was quite my limit.

I knew I'd miss
my new french friends, though.

When you go caving with someone,

You trust your life to them,
and they to you.

You become friends for life.

Aulenbach: the hills
near my home in georgia

Are ideal terrain
for the formation of caves.

Just as extremophiles thrive
in the ice cap of greenland,

Bats are well-adapted
to classic limestone caves.

These flying mammals
sleep all day

And come out at sunset to feed.

40% of all bat species
are endangered,

But not this colony.

The 20 million bats here

Eat half a million pounds
of insects every night.

Narrator:
thanks to special training,

Nancy can introduce her class

To this underappreciated
creature on a field trip.

Aulenbach: do you have
any questions?

Girl:
what do bats eat?

Well, this kind of bat
eats scorpions.

Can you believe that?

I wouldn't want to eat
a scorpion. Would you?

No.
No.
No.
No.

And bats eat
a lot of insects, too.

They get rid of those nasty
mosquitos that bite your legs,

Make you itch.

Like bats, serious cavers
will go a long way

To find a good cave,
so when hazel invited me

On another far-flung search
for extremophiles,

I was raring to go.

Narrator:
southern mexico --

The yucatan peninsula
juts defiantly into the gulf.

[ man singing indistinctly ]

These ancient mayan temples

Were built on one huge
limestone plateau.

The plateau holds hundreds
of miles of cave passage,

The longest underwater
cave system in the world.

The caves are entered through
"cenotes," natural wells.

How did it go?
Did y'all find anything?

Hey, kids, I'm still down here
in mexico with hazel,

And we're looking for something
called a halocline.

A halocline is where the fresh
water from a stream like this

Meets the salt water
in the ocean,

And it forms this really
blurry layer.

You see this blurry layer?

Hazel thinks that there are
some special bugs

That live in this halocline, so
that's why we're looking for it.

Well, that's about it
for right now,

And I love y'all, and give
yourselves a big hug for me.

Bye.

Bye.
Bye.
Bye.
Bye.

Barton: to find
an uncontaminated halocline,

Our guide, jorge gonzalez,

Led us to a remote cave
deep in the jungle.

[ laughing ]

Narrator:
if the fresh water in this cave

Flows all the way to the sea,

It must pass through
a halocline.

To find out, nancy and hazel
use fluorescein dye,

Which does not harm
the environment.

Aulenbach: if this green dye
comes out where we expect,

At a coastal lagoon,

Then we'll know this cave is
connected directly to the sea.

Hazel retrieved
the water collector she placed

At the mouth of the underground
stream the day before.

The slightest trace
of fluorescein will show up

Under my black light.

Barton:
how's it look, nance?

I'm seeing green!

Barton: since the green dye
went through to the ocean,

We went back to the cave
the next day.

Whoo!

[ laughter ]

Hey, be careful,
and have fun.

Aulenbach: I respect hazel's
decision to take up cave diving,

But I promised my family
I'd never do it.

Narrator:
cave diving has been called

The most dangerous adventure
in the world.

Survival takes training,
caution, and luck.

[ moody blues' "water" plays ]

Barton:
we're laying a dive line.

It's a bit like leaving
a trail of bread crumbs

To find your way back home.

� aaaaaaah, aaaah �

� aaaaaaah, aaaah �

Narrator:
jorge affixes arrows to the line

To guide the divers
back to the exit.

� aaaaaaah �

Barton: there are rules
that we never break.

We always turn around
and head for the exit

When we've used up 1/3
of our air

So we have extra air

In case we run into problems
on the way out.

Life in total darkness has made
this species of fish blind.

To compensate, its other senses
have become more acute.

When debris rains down
from the ceiling,

You know that no one's even been
this way before.

� aaaaaaah, aaaah �

If the silt gets kicked up
in a huge cloud

And you lose sight
of the dive line,

You may never find it again,
and you could run out of air

Before you ever find your way
out of the cave.

� aaaaaaaaaah �

When we reached
a breakdown pile,

I wasn't sure if I could get
through the small passage,

But the volume of water
flowing through

Suggested that there was more
cave on the other side,

So I had to find out.

Open-ocean divers
wear scuba tanks on their backs,

But cave divers go side-mount

So we can squeeze through
narrow passages.

In a really tight spot,
you can remove your tanks,

Push them ahead, and then
follow them through the hole.

We were approaching
our turnaround,

And I will not break that rule
no matter what.

Just when the cave seemed
to be reaching the right depth

For a halocline,
we hit a dead end.

In the few moments it took
for us to hunt for an opening,

We kicked up
a huge cloud of silt.

Narrator:
as soon as hazel and jorge

Worked their way
out of the silt cloud,

They headed for the exit.

Barton: just because fluorescein
dye makes it through a passage,

That doesn't mean that we can.

You don't look too happy.
What happened?

I wasn't in much of a talking
mood, but my mind was made up.

We'd try a different cave.

Narratorof new medicines,
due to its biological diversity.

The great variety of cave life

Is starting to prove
just as productive.

You're wet.
Get away from it.

Barton: I wanted
more biological diversity,

But the arrival
of the rainy season

Meant that time was running out.

We needed to find
the halocline fast.

[ "I know you're out there
somewhere" plays ]

Aulenbach:
we saw a chain of cenotes,

Perhaps connected
by an underground river.

I got gps coordinates on
the biggest cenote in the chain,

A good starting point
for the next dive.

[ dramatic music plays ]

Barton:
we decided to use scooters

To give us more range
in our hunt for the halocline.

Girl: � I know
you're out there somewhere �

Barton: as the sunlight
disappeared behind us,

I felt what all scientists feel
in their gut --

"here I go again,
into the black void."

[ man chanting indistinctly ]

There was already a dive line

For us to follow
toward the ocean.

Someone had been here
before us, but when?

It was spooky
when the dive line ran out.

This must be where our mystery
trailblazer turned back.

Aulenbach:
we made an educated guess

As to where the underground
river comes out.

That's where I'm headed
with my gps.

Barton: still no halocline,
but the cave was getting deeper,

So I had a good feeling

About our chances
as we continued downstream.

The elusive halocline.

When we got our glimpse
of it downstream,

We anchored our scooters

To keep the propellers
from disturbing the halocline.

I knew from the blurry layer
that this was definitely it,

A well-defined
and uncontaminated halocline.

Anything living in this boundary

Between the salt and
fresh waters is, by definition,

An extremophile with
a unique system for survival.

I made sure to collect

From different levels
of the halocline

To increase the variety
of the samples.

� ooooh, ahhh �

� ooooh, ahhh �

My samples from the halocline
are very precious.

Who knows what cures
may be waiting

In the samples
I collected today.

Unfortunately, I'll have to wait
a long time to find out,

Because it can take years
to approve

And test a safe, new drug.

For the moment, all I know
is that I'm very, very happy.

Whoo!
I got it!

You got it!

I got it!

It may seem I'm this
free-spirited scientist,

But I'm really part
of a research team.

My colleagues count on me

To bring back
unique microscopic life.

Often, I don't find
what we were looking for,

But I find something else
totally unexpected

And just as useful.

[ choir vocalizing ]

Life is full of surprises.

A powerful microscope can reveal

A whole universe
in a drop of water.

In just six short years,

The search for extremophiles
has produced

A potential new treatment
for leukemia

And added 12 new kingdoms
to the tree of life.

Each kingdom is distinct
from the others

As, say, a cabbage is
from a dolphin.

Narrator:
just when we think we've
seen every inch of our planet,

We find somewhere else
we haven't looked,

Remote, mysterious places
of extreme potential,

Places where the horizon
turns inward

And waits for cavers
to expand it for us all.

[ choir vocalizing ]

Aulenbach:
I am gonna be caving until
my body completely falls apart.

I'm going
to do everything possible

That I can contribute
to the world of caving,

In my wheelchair if I have to.

I'm always gonna be caving
in my heart, always.

� we can run �

� we can ride �

� we can fly �

� treasure every moment �

� never be apart �

� follow every footstep �

� take me to your heart �

� I want to feel the freedom �

� in our lives �

� we can run �

� we can ride �

� we can fly �

� no matter what they say �

� we can love �

� we can live �

� we can fly �