June 19, 2000

A Presidential Encounter
by Rich Lutz

On Monday, June 12, I had the pleasure of attending a "Millennium Matinee” event entitled "Exploration Under the Sea - Beyond the Stars", which was hosted by President and Mrs. Clinton in the East Room of the White House. The event was broadcast live over the Internet and on numerous television stations throughout the country. Dr. Marcia McNutt, Director of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI), and Dr. Neil Tyson, Director of the Hayden Planetarium, presented extremely eloquent lectures on ocean and space exploration, respectively. The President's remarks concerning the critical need for expanded ocean exploration efforts were refreshing and unprecedented.

I had a very nice personal conversation with the President and the following letter is being sent with hopes of soliciting a positive response regarding his involvement with our ongoing efforts to put together an IMAX film and associated companion book on Volcanoes of the Abyss.

CENTER FOR DEEP-SEA ECOLOGY AND BIOTECHNOLOGY
INSTITUTE OF MARINE AND COASTAL SCIENCES
Rutgers University

June 15, 2000

President William Clinton
The White House
Washington, DC

Dear Mr. President,

I very much enjoyed our conversation during the Millennium Matinee Celebration on "Exploration Under the Sea - Beyond the Stars" concerning the possibility of your involvement with an IMAX film focused on ocean exploration and discovery. Your public comments during the Millennium event represented "a storm of fresh air” to many of us in the audience who have devoted our careers to exploration of the ocean and the unveiling of its secrets.

As I mentioned during our discussion, we are putting together an IMAX film on "Volcanoes of the Abyss", which focuses on many of the exciting areas of ocean exploration eloquently summarized by Marcia McNutt. The film will take the audience on a magical, highly scientific undersea journey encompassing the wide range of topics from the origin of life to exploration of the unknown oceanic environment beneath the ice of Jupiter's moon Europa. Spectacular images of giant tubeworms and other bizarre creatures inhabiting chemosynthetically-based ecosystems will fill the giant IMAX screen, providing unprecedented views of the wonders of "inner space". It is estimated that over 20 million Americans will view the film in IMAX theaters associated with museums and aquaria throughout the country. The Companion Book with the same title (Volcanoes of the Abyss) will be a highly illustrated, scientific "coffee-table" volume, likely published by the National Geographic Society, although alternative, high-quality publishers exist. Given the unprecedented support of your Administration and your personal emphasis on the critical importance of exploration of the Ocean, we would be honored if you would author the Introduction of the book. A few introductory or concluding remarks from you in the film itself would also be highly appropriate should you be willing to make them.

The Director of the IMAX film is Stephen Low, who has directed 8 previous large-format films, including Mark Twain's America, Beavers, Across the Sea of Time, and Titanica. Mr. Low has indicated a willingness and enthusiasm to arrange for a private showing of the selected footage taken to date for Volcanoes of the Abyss for your viewing at the IMAX theater associated with the Smithsonian's Museum of Natural History (just a few blocks from the White House). While the preliminary footage is just 10 minutes long, we are confident that it will be a 10 minutes that will be unlike anything you have experienced to date. The timing of the brief presentation can be arranged to suit your schedule.

I have enclosed a copy of the detailed proposal to the National Science Foundation which summarizes the film and
associated educational outreach programs, including the Companion Book. One particularly exciting aspect
of the film project over the coming months is our intent to bring together for the first time on the bottom of the ocean
the U.S. and Russian deep submergence assets to obtain the most breathtaking images ever taken on the deep sea floor. To this end, we hope to be able to have the two Russian Mir submersibles and the U.S. submersible Alvin together on the bottom at the TAG hydrothermal vent field (a volcanic edifice the size of the Houston Astrodome capped with black smokers violently discharging fluids at temperatures in excess of 700° F). We are planning the historic rendezvous
for this coming October/November, a time which would still be during your Administration. It is indeed an event for
which you should take immense personal credit on a variety of fronts.

I very much look forward to your response to the above and sincerely hope that you might be a part of the initiatives
associated with what we are confident will not only be the best and most scientifically-based IMAX film ever produced,
but a testimony to the critical importance of ongoing and future ocean exploration and discoveries.

With warm regards,
Richard A. Lutz
Director

Highlights

• Jennifer Francis participated last week in a French/U.S. workshop sponsored by NSF Geosciences to plan new directions of development for aircraft-borne instrumentation for atmospheric research. The impetus for this workshop is the new NSF long-range, high-altitude research aircraft that is presently under development.
• Dale Haidvogel and Carl Wunsch are holding the first WOCE Young Investigators Workshop 12-30 June at NCAR. Funded by NSF, the Workshop objective is to introduce 25 young scientists to numerical modeling and estimation techniques, including hands-on training in ocean circulation models and oceanic inverse theory.
• Jennifer Francis has been elected Chair of the American Meteorological Society Committee on Polar Meteorology and Oceanography; as well as vice-chair of NSF's Observing Facilities Advisory Panel, which reviews all requests from researchers to use NSF's aircraft and surface-based equipment in field campaigns.
• Lee Kerkhof, Sybil Seitzinger, and Gary Taghon were awarded a DOE-Biological Ocean Margins Program grant with Jorge Corredor from the University of Puerto Rico-Mayaguez. The project will involve use of DNA tools to study denitrification in coastal oceanic samples and in the seawater flumes at IMCS.
  

Seminars

• June 19, 2000, 10:30 - 11:30 AM, Alampi Room: Seminar by Dr. Robert D. Vaillancourt, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, “Inferring the causes of ocean color variability from laboratory studies and optical theory: why is the water blue, or green or red?”
• June 20, 2000, 1:30 - 2:30 PM, Phillip Alampi Room: Seminar by Dr. James W. Ammerman, Texas A&M University, “The application of continuous underway microbial rate measurements to nutrient limitation studies in the Mississippi River Plume”