IMAX Coming Attractions

Lost Worlds

What happened here? What keeps all civilizations alive? To find out, join narrator Harrison Ford on a scientific adventure from the arctic to the equator. Tunnel into a metropolis of micro-organisms beneath New York, swim through the underwater forests of the Pacific, and climb to the top of the mysterious mountains in Venezuela that inspired Arthur Conan Doyle's novel The Lost World. Discover the wonders of biological diversity—and its importance to all of us.

Flying over the skyscrapers of New York City, we pass through the windows of a high-rise apartment where a family is finishing breakfast. Today's cities feel as if they will last forever. Everything we need is at our disposal. But do we ever stop to wonder where all this comes from? Before we realize what is happening, the camera moves towards the faucet where the father is filling a glass of water, follows the stream of water, and swims up into the faucet.

In a wild IMAX ride, we drop down through the building's water pipes, twist through city mains and valves into the great aqueduct, and finally burst out of the subterranean system and up to the sunlit surface of the Ashokan Reservoir in the Catskill mountains. Because most of us live in cities, it's easy to forget how much we depend on nature. If New York had to build water-purification plants, it would cost billions. Here, in the Catskills, nature provides that service free of charge.

For more on Lost Worlds, visit http://www.amnh.org/museum/imax/lost_worlds