Crack in the World | |
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Directed by | Andrew Marton |
Written by |
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Produced by |
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Starring | |
Cinematography | Manuel Berenguer |
Music by | Johnny Douglas |
Distributed by | Paramount Pictures |
Release date |
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Running time | 96 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Budget | $875,000 [1] |
Crack in the World is a 1965 American science-fiction doomsday disaster movie filmed in Spain. It is about scientists who launch a nuclear missile into the Earth's crust, to release the geothermal energy of the magma below; but accidentally unleash a cataclysmic destruction that threatens to sever the earth in two. It was released by Paramount Pictures on February 24, 1965. [2]
An international consortium of scientists, operating as Project Inner Space in Tanganyika, Africa, is trying to tap into the Earth's geothermal energy by drilling a very deep hole down to the Earth's core. The scientists are foiled by an extremely dense layer of material. To penetrate the barrier and reach the magma below, they intend to detonate an atomic device at the bottom of the hole.
The leader of the project, Dr. Stephen Sorenson (Dana Andrews), who is secretly dying of cancer, believes that the atomic device will burn its way through the barrier, but the project's chief geologist, Dr. Ted Rampion (Kieron Moore), is convinced that the lower layers of the crust have been weakened by decades of underground nuclear tests, and that the detonation could produce a massive crack which would threaten the very existence of Earth.
The atomic device is used and Rampion's fears prove justified, as the crust of the Earth develops an enormous crack that progresses rapidly along a fault line, causing earthquakes and tsunamis along its path. Rampion warns a committee of world leaders that the crack is capable of extending beyond the fault, and that if it were to encircle the Earth, causing the land masses to split, the oceans would be sucked in, generating steam at high enough of a pressure to rip the Earth apart.
Sorenson meanwhile discovers that there was a huge reservoir of hydrogen underground, which turned the small conventional atomic explosion into a huge thermonuclear one that was millions of times more powerful. Another atomic device, lowered into the magma chamber of an island volcano in the path of the crack, is used in the hope of stopping the crack, but it only changes the crack's direction. Eventually, the crack approaches its starting point at the test site, and a huge chunk of the planet outlined by the crack is expected to be thrown out into space. Sorenson remains at the underground control center to record the event, despite pleas by his wife Maggie to evacuate with the rest of the project staff. She and Rampion barely escape the test site in time to observe the fiery birth of a second moon. Its release stops the crack, and the Earth survives.
Shooting took place in and around Madrid, which was chosen for its lower production costs. Production lasted about seven weeks. The film's technical adviser was producer Glasser's neighbor, a geologist. [1]
Variety wrote that it was more believable than the usual science fiction premise and praised its special effects. [3] Howard Thompson of The New York Times called it "the best science-fiction thriller this year". [4] Time Out London called it "awesomely credible" and described the ending's imagery as disturbing. [5]
Granite is a coarse-grained (phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies underground. It is common in the continental crust of Earth, where it is found in igneous intrusions. These range in size from dikes only a few centimeters across to batholiths exposed over hundreds of square kilometers.
Magma is the molten or semi-molten natural material from which all igneous rocks are formed. Magma is found beneath the surface of the Earth, and evidence of magmatism has also been discovered on other terrestrial planets and some natural satellites. Besides molten rock, magma may also contain suspended crystals and gas bubbles.
In geology, rock is any naturally occurring solid mass or aggregate of minerals or mineraloid matter. It is categorized by the minerals included, its chemical composition, and the way in which it is formed. Rocks form the Earth's outer solid layer, the crust, and most of its interior, except for the liquid outer core and pockets of magma in the asthenosphere. The study of rocks involves multiple subdisciplines of geology, including petrology and mineralogy. It may be limited to rocks found on Earth, or it may include planetary geology that studies the rocks of other celestial objects.
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This Island Earth is a 1955 American science fiction film produced by William Alland, directed by Joseph M. Newman and Jack Arnold, and starring Jeff Morrow, Faith Domergue and Rex Reason. It is based on the 1952 novel of the same name by Raymond F. Jones. The film, distributed by Universal-International, was released in 1955 on a double feature with Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy.
Geothermal gradient is the rate of change in temperature with respect to increasing depth in Earth's interior. As a general rule, the crust temperature rises with depth due to the heat flow from the much hotter mantle; away from tectonic plate boundaries, temperature rises in about 25–30 °C/km (72–87 °F/mi) of depth near the surface in the continental crust. However, in some cases the temperature may drop with increasing depth, especially near the surface, a phenomenon known as inverse or negative geothermal gradient. The effects of weather, the Sun, and season only reach a depth of roughly 10–20 m (33–66 ft).
At the Earth's Core is a 1976 fantasy-science fiction film produced by Britain's Amicus Productions. A British-American co-production, the film was directed by Kevin Connor and stars Doug McClure, Peter Cushing and Caroline Munro. It was filmed in Technicolor, and is based on the 1914 fantasy novel At the Earth's Core by Edgar Rice Burroughs, the first book of his Pellucidar series, in token of which the film is also known as Edgar Rice Burroughs' At the Earth's Core.
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A salted bomb is a nuclear weapon designed to function as a radiological weapon by producing larger quantities of radioactive fallout than unsalted nuclear arms. This fallout can render a large area uninhabitable. The term is derived both from the means of their manufacture, which involves the incorporation of additional elements to a standard atomic weapon, and from the expression "to salt the earth", meaning to render an area uninhabitable for generations. The idea originated with Hungarian-American physicist Leo Szilard, in February 1950. His intent was not to propose that such a weapon be built, but to show that nuclear weapon technology would soon reach the point where it could end human life on Earth.
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Dougal Alexander Jerram is a British geologist/earth scientist, and television and media presenter/contributor.
A continental arc is a type of volcanic arc occurring as an "arc-shape" topographic high region along a continental margin. The continental arc is formed at an active continental margin where two tectonic plates meet, and where one plate has continental crust and the other oceanic crust along the line of plate convergence, and a subduction zone develops. The magmatism and petrogenesis of continental crust are complicated: in essence, continental arcs reflect a mixture of oceanic crust materials, mantle wedge and continental crust materials.
The Cosmic Man is a 1959 independently made black-and-white science fiction film, directed by Herbert S. Greene and produced by Robert A. Terry. The film stars John Carradine, Bruce Bennett and Angela Greene. The narrative concerns an extraterrestrial being who, just as the space age is beginning, comes to Earth bearing a message of interplanetary peace and understanding, only to clash with the military. The Cosmic Man was made by Futura Productions Inc. and was distributed in the US by Allied Artists and in the UK by Associated British-Pathé.
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