Ancient Caves

Ancient Caves is showing at the Arizona Science Center on Thursday, Oct. 29, as part of the center's current lineup. It's a documentary that follows paleoclimatologist Dr. Gina Moseley on a mission to unlock the secrets of Earth's climate inside caves.

For a long time, scientists didn't have a reliable way to study the climate of the distant past. Moseley and her team of cave explorers travel the world to find a workaround: stalagmite samples. They head into remote caves in France, Iceland, the Bahamas, the U.S., and Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula to collect these geologic fingerprints, which hold clues about the planet's climate history. Together, they show how rapidly Earth's climate can change and how that's shaped human civilization.

The show plays in the Irene P. Flinn Giant Screen Theater, a five-story venue on Level 1 of the center. It's the same theater that houses the Dorrance DOME, one of the most advanced digital domes in the world, and the center has more than 300 hands-on exhibits to explore around it.

Daily showtimes are 12:15 PM and 2:15 PM. The Arizona Science Center is open Tuesday through Sunday, 10:30 AM to 4:00 PM, and is open on select Mondays. You'll find it at 600 E. Washington St. in downtown Phoenix.