Chile's Atacama Desert is the driest, oldest and deadest desert on earth. Yet it's plays host to living creatures and penguins even thrive nearby. It may provide clues to where to look for life on other, seemingly barren, planets.
The discovery of the San Andreas Fault and efforts to understand it are described.
2009 • Environment
The discovery of the Marianas trench was one of the first puzzle pieces that lead to the understanding of the most massive process that shapes the geology of the Earth; plate tectonics and the creation of new crust in the mid-ocean ridges and its subduction under the continents.
2009 • Environment
The unique geological conditions that make Krakatoa and its successor, Anak Krakatau, extraordinarily explosive and, despite its remoteness, dangerous are explained.
2009 • Environment
Scotland is a ground zero for some of the most significant geologic cataclysms in Earth's history. Understanding of these titanic shifts was prompted by a mysterious lake known as Loch Ness.
2009 • Environment
The geological history of New York City is as superlative as it's current economic impact including; a titanic mountain rage, massive volcanic eruptions, immense glaciers and an enormous flash flood.
2009 • Environment
Chile's Atacama Desert is the driest, oldest and deadest desert on earth. Yet it's plays host to living creatures and penguins even thrive nearby. It may provide clues to where to look for life on other, seemingly barren, planets.
2009 • Environment
The Great Lakes region provided geologists with much of the evidence for the frequent ice ages that visited North America. But the lakes may be a rather transient feature of the continent dependent upon the recurring ice ages to maintain their existence.
2009 • Environment
The evidence, structure, history and potential threat of the Yellowstone super volcano are described.
2009 • Environment
The Hawaiian Islands are a study in contradictions. The fastest growing islands on earth are also the fastest disappearing. Made of one of the hardest minerals, it crumbles at a touch. The world's most active volcano is nowhere near the typical volcanic regions. Geologists strive to understand these mysteries.
2009 • Environment
The Alps are known as the majestic mountain range of Europe. But their formation from a collision between Europe and Africa left an unstable structure that is now a classic study in erosion by rivers of water, ice and rock suggesting an even greater former glory. Left unexplained is why the Mediterranean Sea exists between the continents.
2009 • Environment
An average guy Jeb Berrier, makes a resolution to stop using plastic bags at the grocery store. Little does he know that this simple decision will change his life completely. He comes to the conclusion that our consumptive use of plastic has finally caught up to us, and looks at what we can do about it.
2010 • Environment
In the forested depths of eastern Congo lies Virunga National Park, one of the most bio-diverse places in the world and home to the last of the mountain gorillas. In this wild, but enchanted environment, a small and embattled team of park rangers - including an ex-child soldier turned ranger, a carer of orphan gorillas and a Belgian conservationist - protect this UNESCO world heritage site from armed militia, poachers and the dark forces struggling to control Congo's rich natural resources. When the newly formed M23 rebel group declares war in May 2012, a new conflict threatens the lives and stability of everyone and everything they've worked so hard to protect.
2014 • Environment
Venus and Mars show how inhospitable Earth could have been if things were just a little bit different.
S1E6 • Secrets of the Earth • 2013 • Environment
The semantics of the model I'm working from use common goods/common property/ common pool resources (resources used by multiple people) and common property regimes (the institutions or social arrangements between people, the property rights regarding common pool resources).
This Place • 2015 • Environment
Countless animals from across the globe currently face extinction; if we are to stem the tide we must understand the lifestyles and habitats of the awe-inspiring creatures currently in danger.
2020 • Environment
Following a trail of fossils found in all the wrong places–beech trees in Antarctica, redwoods and hippo-like mammals in the Arctic–NOVA uncovers the bizarre history of the poles, from miles-thick ice sheets to warm polar forests teeming with life.
NOVA PBS • 2020 • Environment