By Julie Brown for Moonshine Ink

Note: This article and video was developed as part of a cooperative effort by Moonshine Ink and Tahoe TV. 

If you live in Truckee/Tahoe and you care about that beautiful body of water we affectionately call Big Blue, you need to see the film “Lake Tahoe In Depth,” a featured part of a new exhibit at the Tahoe Environmental Research Center (TERC) in Incline Village.

“Avatar” fans, you’re in luck — the segment is in 3-D and takes viewers on a flight through the bizarre and incredible world of the Tahoe Basin, both above and below the lake’s famously clear waters.

“It’s a view that you couldn’t see any other way,” said Steve McQuinn, the film’s computer graphics artist.

An educational film produced by the U.C. Davis Tahoe Environmental Research Center (TERC), “Lake Tahoe In Depth” reveals the fault lines running through the lake, the glacial and volcanic features that created the bowl-like basin, underwater cliffs that dive down hundreds of feet, and ancient forests. It also features a simulation of the massive underwater landslide that occurred offshore of Tahoe City some 50,000 years ago. Like a splash in a bath creates reverberations on all sides of the tub, the landslide triggered a tsunami followed by other powerful and destructive waves that crashed into the shoreline and essentially destroyed all lakeside life in 20 minutes flat.

Read full story from Moonshine Ink here.