15
August
2010
James Cameron takes part in the ‘Mirs on Baikal’ expedition
James Cameron, a famous American film director and creator of
the Titanic and Avatar, arrived in Irkutsk on a private visit early
in the morning on 15 August 2010. He came to Russia on a personal
invitation of his friend Anatoly Sagalevich, chairman of the
Technical Committee of the Fund for Protection of Lake Baikal.
During his trip to Baikal, James Cameron is accompanied by Michael
McDowell, a famous Australian explorer, a member of the Arctic 2007
deepwater expedition, and Maria Wilhelm, the author of Avatar: A
Field Guide To Pandora. Upon arrival the guests were invited by
Dmitry Mezentsev, Governor of the Irkutsk Region, to have
breakfast, which was served on the bank of the Angara River. Lake
Baikal greeted everyone with lovely weather – the rough storm and
the pouring rain that had been raging the day before the arrival
had stopped.
James Cameron who celebrates his first time on Baikal and in
Siberia praised the beauty of the local nature. Dmitry Mezentsev in
his turn expressed hope that the film director will have a chance
to discover an absolutely new species that could serve a base for a
new movie. This remark made everyone join in a lively discussion.
It is worth mentioning that during the three seasons of the Mirs on
Baikal expedition the explorers managed to discover a few species
of living organisms as yet unknown to science. Among them are
spherical structures formed of microorganism colonies that feed on
methane.
Within the next few days James Cameron is planning to take part in
the expedition of the Mir submersibles to the bottom of Baikal. It
is by far not his first experience in underwater research
activities. During the filming of Titanic the director used Mir
submersibles several times to dive over 4,000 meters deep into the
Atlantic Ocean.
