Limestone Paradise

The camera flies across the Limestone Alps of Upper Austria:
Jagged ridges and crests alternate with dramatic abysses. Bizarre buttes stretch to the sky. In fast motion, a thunderstorm brews up, clouds build up frantically, a sea of clouds threatens to swamp the peaks, the world darkens and blinding flashes of lightning lash out of the sky. Deafening thunder rolls round the Dead Mountains, reflected by their mighty rock faces. The heavy rain beats down on a rugged karst landscape. The rain penetrates countless clefts and fissures. Water and frost make the mountains vulnerable, forever cutting into them, hollowing them out, seeping into even the smallest crevices and blasting them open. Indeed, the Limestone Alps are a most attractive manifestation of the destruction wrought by the elements.

For several months, the ScienceVision camera teams had to put up with the most extreme conditions on the rock faces and ridges of the Limestone Alps until this project was finally completed. Special techniques such as digital fast motion sequences and aerial filming with extremely complex camera stabilization systems were applied to film the spectacular images which, projected onto a big screen, take the visitor on an unforgettable journey through many millions of years of geological history.

The film has been running since 2006 in the exhibition Faszination Fels in the visitor center of the Kalkalpen National Park at the Wurbauerkogel near Windischgarsten.