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[MUSIC PLAYING]

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There are places in the world
that are poised to explode.

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Hot spots that radiate
unimaginable energy.

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A world created out
of fire and ice.

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Where power comes from the
bowels of the earth.

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Where layers of rocks
are turned

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topsy-turvy by tectonic tension.

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Where that tension has been
released into a vertical land

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of glacially-carved pinnacles
and geologic wonder across the

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Eurasian plate, Tectonic
Europe.

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A lonely empty research hut on
the southern coast of Iceland.

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This is quite an emotional
moment for me because we spent

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a lot of time here
back in 1977.

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This was our home from
home when we were

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working on the glaciers.

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Canadian geologist Nick Eyles
has not been here

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for a very long time.

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That was my bunk down there.

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And this would have been full
of people with wet gear

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hanging from the roof.

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Probably a fire out there trying
to get some warmth.

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These days, Nick is a Professor
of Geology at the

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University of Toronto.

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When we were working here,
the ice was a lot closer

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than what it is now.

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For geologists like Nick,
and his good friend from

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Reykjavik, Kristinn Gudjonsson,
Iceland is a

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wonderland.

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Once you go over the ridge, the
glacier has gone back a

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long way now.

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It's a place where the effects
of tectonics are palpable, and

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where the relationship between
volcanoes and glaciers is

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always changing.

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Now, in the grand scheme of
things, Iceland is small.

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And to some, it may even have
seemed inconsequential.

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That all changed in the
spring of 2010.

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Eyjafjallajokull started spewing
ash for the first time

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in 200 years.

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And the position of Iceland in
the world's consciousness went

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from this, to this.

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The ash cloud was dense
enough to cancel

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flights around the world.

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The column went as high as 11
kilometers into the sky.

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There are particulates in the
ash that could choke the air

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intake of a jet engine.

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It was the biggest disruption
in air travel since 9/11.

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Icelanders are forever aware
that the next big one could

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happen any day.

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In Iceland, the glaciers sit on
top of the volcanoes like

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lids on cooking pots.

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Every now and again, the pots
boil over and the lids lift

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off and kaboom, floods, ash,
and lava are everywhere,

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exploding with enough force to
twist these steel girders from

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a highway bridge like
pipe cleaners.

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So the glaciers are the

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regulators of volcanic activity.

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Myrdalsjokull, where Nick and
Kristinn are heading, is a

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relatively small Icelandic
glacier.

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But don't let that fool you.

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It's still formidable because
it covers a nasty simmering

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volcano called Katla.

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You can smell the sulfur, so
you know there's a volcano

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underneath here.

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It's an example of
a dirt cone.

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Yes.

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Which is volcanic ash.

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It insulates the ice.

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So I can dig away
at the surface.

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There's ice--

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Ice underneath.

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Underneath.

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So it's not a cone
of solid ash.

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It's--

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Actually quite thin.

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It's a skin.

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Yeah.

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It's a skin.

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We've got to remind ourselves
all the time of that.

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There's an active or
a quiet volcano--

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Yes.

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Yes.

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Right underneath the ice.

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Well, maybe not so quiet.

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Yeah.

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It's just simmering.

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Simmering and ready to go.

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If that monster volcano Katla
went off, the explosion would

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be an estimated 10 times
stronger than

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Eyjafjallajokull.

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But luckily, at least for now,
the glacier over Katla has

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been keeping a snug
cap on things.

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Glaciers and volcanoes.

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The relationship between the
two would seem highly

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incompatible, but it's because
Iceland is still young and

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still cooking.

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It's only been here for about
eight million years.

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Iceland is also part of the
ocean floor pushed up to the

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surface by heat.

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That's why Iceland is so
important to science, because

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there is nowhere else where
geologists can walk across the

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landscape, and at the same time
studying how the seafloor

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is spreading due to
magma coming up.

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And magma is the fuel
of plate tectonics.

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There's nowhere stable on the
Earth's surface today.

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Everywhere is moving.

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I think it's important to bring
people out into natural

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landscapes and explain how that
landscape got developed.

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In some places, you have to
watch where you step.

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Those mud holes are
scalding hot.

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And the crust around them
can be as thin as paper.

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But in the midst of all this
potentially dangerous ground,

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Icelanders have spotted
opportunity.

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This is basically steam.

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This is a high temperature
hot spring area.

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So it's steam that comes
from the ground.

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And they use that steam to heat
up cold ground water,

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which they then pipe
to the town.

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And we are going more and more
into generating electricity

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with geothermal steam
rather than hydro.

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And presumably, there's
an unlimited supply

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of geothermal energy.

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Yeah.

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A renewable resource courtesy
of plate tectonics.

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For the next one thousand
million years at least.

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Now presumably, the next
lava flow is going to

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wipe the plant out.

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Yeah, possibly.

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Very possibly.

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Or a fissure might open
up right below it.

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And this is simply the risk you
have to take when you are

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living on a volcano.

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This is a very interesting
town here we are driving

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through, [INAUDIBLE].

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Icelanders understand that
there is a risk to simply

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living in this landscape.

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Sometimes, it's right
under their houses.

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Last year, we had an earthquake
here, 6.4 on the

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Richter scale, and many of the
houses were damaged so

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seriously that they weren't
usable anymore.

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So there are swarms
of earthquakes?

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Yeah.

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And the steam you see up there
in the mountain, these are

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actually new hot springs
created--

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Right.

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--in the earthquake because
there is a displacement.

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Cracks are formed
in the bedrock.

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In this town a year earlier,
none of those steam fissures

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were even here.

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They are often created in the
cellars of these houses, in

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their front yard.

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It can be a problem sometimes.

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Iceland literally rides a plume
of magma above the spot

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where the Eurasian tectonic
plate meets the

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North American plate.

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Right on top of a staggering
amount of geologic power.

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So this.

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This is a maximum example of the
raw energy we are tapping

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into underneath here.

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This is a bore hole, which is
blowing now, and it produces

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19 megawatts of energy.

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19 megawatts is roughly the same
amount of power generated

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by four electric locomotives.

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When they first tap one of these
bore holes, it explodes

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with so much force that
engineers have to let it blow

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off steam for weeks until
that can cap it with a

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high-pressure pipe.

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So this is only happening here
because we're near the edge of

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the plates where it's very
thin, we're close to the

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mantle source so the rocks
are really fractured.

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So the water drives down and
then it comes up superheated.

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Yes.

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Yes.

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And if we didn't have a muffler
on this, we wouldn't

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be able to stand here.

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The sound would be so--

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Yeah.

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--so we'd lose our hearing
in seconds.

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All of this power is here
because magma is coming out of

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the entire length of the
rift all the time.

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It's where plates
are being built.

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It's like two conveyor belts
moving in opposite directions,

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pushing the plates apart.

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Because Iceland's rocks are on
the surface and right on the

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plate boundary, it's the perfect
place to see how

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plates grow.

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This place is called Thingvellir
and that path down

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there runs right along
with the plates meet.

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So could you automate the
network that you've got?

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Yeah.

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Professor Freysteinn Sigmundsson
takes regular

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measurements here.

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He's keeping track of how fast
the plates are separating.

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The rate of plate movement in
Iceland is about the same as

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the rate of the growth
of your fingernail.

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So when we come back
after a year, we

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can measure the spreading.

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In Iceland, this is 2
centimeters periods.

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We're looking out across the Big
Rift Valley, which is the

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boundary with Europe.

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Yes.

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And you're measuring the rate at
which North American plate

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is being pushed to the west.

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Yes.

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Exactly.

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Regular measurements have been
conducted here since the

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acceptance of plate tectonics
in the 1960s.

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So, if it wasn't for the
Icelandic plume, all this

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would be underwater.

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This would be part of the North
Atlantic ridge and we

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wouldn't see it.

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Yeah.

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It would be 3 kilometers
below sea level.

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So we are at the leading edge
of the North American plate.

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Yeah.

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We just go over there,
a ridge actually.

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It's only a 5-minute drive
to Europe here.

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Well.

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Iceland exposes a process that
is going on continually along

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the bottom of the
Atlantic Ocean.

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The floor is always spreading
along a mid-ocean ridge.

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A moonscape would be the
word to describe this.

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Yeah.

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It's a landscape which otherwise
you can't see

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because it's underneath
the ocean.

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Yeah.

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The only place where the ridge
comes up for air is Iceland.

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So Nick is here because he can
actually see what the geology

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looks like at the bottom
of the ocean.

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He can see where surface
eruptions are the same as what

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happens on the sea bed.

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As we knew more about the ocean
floor, as we knew more

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about the center lines of the
ocean, such as what we see in

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Iceland, where new crust
is being added.

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And that addition is pushing
the plates aside.

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As that information got added
to geology information, it

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became completely clear that the
continents had migrated as

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part of plates.

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The plates have their own
system of movement.

00:12:15.460 --> 00:12:19.560
They come together,
they break apart.

00:12:19.560 --> 00:12:23.450
The Earth's last super
continent was Pangea.

00:12:23.450 --> 00:12:26.440
For a long time, it
remained intact.

00:12:26.440 --> 00:12:29.390
And then the plates broke apart
and we wound up with the

00:12:29.390 --> 00:12:33.650
continents and oceans
we know today.

00:12:33.650 --> 00:12:37.910
The Eurasian plate stretches
from Iceland where it is born,

00:12:37.910 --> 00:12:42.060
to the Alps in Switzerland where
it smashes into Africa.

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Eventually, Nick will make
his way down there.

00:12:44.590 --> 00:12:45.900
But not yet.

00:12:45.900 --> 00:12:48.875
There is still way too much
stuff going on in Iceland.

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Olifer Egerton is one of those
Icelanders who has taken full

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advantage of the cheap
local power.

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He's been tapping into
a volcano for years.

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Yeah, and I had a bore hole.

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So here we have the bore hole.

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This is a source of
geothermal heat.

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Yes.

00:13:10.540 --> 00:13:15.280
And exactly 20 years ago
he drilled this hole.

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And you can see the water that
comes out of it is 66 degrees.

00:13:20.950 --> 00:13:25.130
Olifer uses the geothermal water
to heat his whole farm,

00:13:25.130 --> 00:13:28.100
barns and all, while tapping
the force of a glacial

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waterfall to run an old turbine
that his grandfather

00:13:31.700 --> 00:13:33.570
built in the 1920s.

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So any surplus energy that you
generate gets put back into

00:13:37.280 --> 00:13:38.223
the national grid.

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Is that right?

00:13:38.686 --> 00:13:41.106
[SPEAKING ICELANDIC]

00:13:41.106 --> 00:13:50.970
[SPEAKING ICELANDIC]

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When he is producing more
electricity than he needs, he

00:13:55.630 --> 00:13:57.302
sales it to the grid.

00:13:57.302 --> 00:14:01.730
When the farming operations
are the most demanding for

00:14:01.730 --> 00:14:04.550
electricity, he has to
buy off the grid.

00:14:04.550 --> 00:14:05.570
But it evens out.

00:14:05.570 --> 00:14:10.400
And what he pays for electricity
for his whole

00:14:10.400 --> 00:14:14.120
farmer, this is a big farm for
Icelandic standards, it's less

00:14:14.120 --> 00:14:15.515
than his phone bill.

00:14:18.260 --> 00:14:22.480
Unfortunately for Olifer, his
cheap heat and power come from

00:14:22.480 --> 00:14:26.370
Eyjafjallajokull, the volcano
that exploded.

00:14:26.370 --> 00:14:27.940
It's right behind his farm.

00:14:30.700 --> 00:14:33.090
Olifer snapped this
picture just as

00:14:33.090 --> 00:14:34.340
he was being evacuated.

00:14:38.170 --> 00:14:42.120
The thing about Icelandic
volcanoes is that they hit

00:14:42.120 --> 00:14:43.950
with a triple whammy.

00:14:43.950 --> 00:14:47.930
When one starts to bubble, it
melts the ice on the underside

00:14:47.930 --> 00:14:50.110
of the glacier and
that creates the

00:14:50.110 --> 00:14:51.850
risk of flash flooding.

00:14:51.850 --> 00:14:54.400
That alone can be devastating.

00:14:54.400 --> 00:14:56.960
But then the ash starts
to mix with the water.

00:14:56.960 --> 00:15:00.470
The pressure of the eruption
lifts the glacier and

00:15:00.470 --> 00:15:04.740
fast-moving walls of debris go
speeding into the valleys.

00:15:04.740 --> 00:15:08.170
Icelanders call these
jokulhlaups, which literally

00:15:08.170 --> 00:15:11.350
translates as leak
from a mountain.

00:15:11.350 --> 00:15:15.140
Finally, once the glacial lid
on top of the crater has

00:15:15.140 --> 00:15:19.500
melted, a full on volcanic
eruption happens, showering

00:15:19.500 --> 00:15:23.780
the surrounding countryside
with ash.

00:15:23.780 --> 00:15:27.283
The 2010 eruption covered
farmer's fields with 20

00:15:27.283 --> 00:15:29.050
centimeters of ash.

00:15:29.050 --> 00:15:32.410
It has rendered them useless
until the ash can mix with the

00:15:32.410 --> 00:15:36.660
soil, making the fields
arable again.

00:15:36.660 --> 00:15:40.200
That could take years.

00:15:40.200 --> 00:15:44.210
In the ruins of a centuries old
stone shepherds cottage, a

00:15:44.210 --> 00:15:47.660
subterranean vent into the
kitchen is still open.

00:15:47.660 --> 00:15:50.670
A whisper of geothermal
steam rises

00:15:50.670 --> 00:15:53.260
through an ancient stove.

00:15:53.260 --> 00:15:56.700
While in the background,
drilling rigs go searching for

00:15:56.700 --> 00:15:59.520
the geothermal motherload.

00:15:59.520 --> 00:16:02.670
There are few places in the
world where you can do this,

00:16:02.670 --> 00:16:05.960
drill right through the crust
and plug into the energy.

00:16:11.808 --> 00:16:15.294
So quite literally this is
drilling into a volcano to

00:16:15.294 --> 00:16:17.784
mine heat from the bottom
of the earth's crust.

00:16:17.784 --> 00:16:22.266
Yes, and go down 50 meters per
day on average, depending on

00:16:22.266 --> 00:16:24.258
the type of bedrock we have.

00:16:24.258 --> 00:16:27.744
The length of this hole is
more than 2,000 meters.

00:16:27.744 --> 00:16:33.222
The longest one here is about
more than 3,000 meters and up

00:16:33.222 --> 00:16:36.459
north they are drilling a hole
which is 4,000 meters, and

00:16:36.459 --> 00:16:39.696
when you consider in these areas
the crust is about 5

00:16:39.696 --> 00:16:40.194
kilometers.

00:16:40.194 --> 00:16:43.182
So they're almost through
the crust here.

00:16:43.182 --> 00:16:45.921
So when people say we're running
out of energy, that's

00:16:45.921 --> 00:16:47.166
not strictly true is it?

00:16:47.166 --> 00:16:49.656
No.

00:16:49.656 --> 00:16:53.142
Not in the terms of geothermal
energy definitely.

00:16:53.142 --> 00:16:56.877
As long as we have active
volcanoes in Iceland, we will

00:16:56.877 --> 00:16:58.127
have energy.

00:17:05.670 --> 00:17:08.329
This is what you do at the end
of a hard day doing geology.

00:17:08.329 --> 00:17:09.560
Yes, definitely.

00:17:09.560 --> 00:17:14.109
And I guess Icelanders have been
using the hot water since

00:17:14.109 --> 00:17:17.160
the beginning of settlement,
of course.

00:17:17.160 --> 00:17:20.390
Bathed in it, cooked in it.

00:17:20.390 --> 00:17:23.640
And this is an excellent
example here.

00:17:23.640 --> 00:17:27.230
The locals needed a pool to
teach the kids to swim.

00:17:27.230 --> 00:17:30.780
There is hot water coming from
out of the rocks here and they

00:17:30.780 --> 00:17:36.090
just built these concrete wall
and it filled on it's own.

00:17:36.090 --> 00:17:37.550
And this they did in 1923.

00:17:37.550 --> 00:17:40.180
So this is from a natural
spring of hot water.

00:17:40.180 --> 00:17:40.440
Yes.

00:17:40.440 --> 00:17:43.730
It's coming from the
volcano above us.

00:17:43.730 --> 00:17:46.935
85% of all houses in Iceland
are heated with this.

00:17:46.935 --> 00:17:50.020
We are using this to generate
electricity.

00:17:50.020 --> 00:17:53.870
So it's a big asset
for the country.

00:17:53.870 --> 00:17:56.110
So it's not all bad news living
around volcanoes.

00:17:56.110 --> 00:17:56.340
Nope.

00:17:56.340 --> 00:17:57.130
It has it's rewards.

00:17:57.130 --> 00:18:00.410
Definitely not.

00:18:00.410 --> 00:18:04.410
Bathing in hot springs,
outrunning ash clouds, it's

00:18:04.410 --> 00:18:06.140
all part of the Icelandic
experience.

00:18:12.470 --> 00:18:17.430
In 1783, when the volcano Laki
last went off, lava fountains

00:18:17.430 --> 00:18:19.980
reached over a kilometer
into the sky.

00:18:19.980 --> 00:18:23.440
The ash fallout for the eruption
drifted to Europe and

00:18:23.440 --> 00:18:27.700
pretty much eliminated
summer in the UK.

00:18:27.700 --> 00:18:30.780
The effects of Laki precipitated
the Little Ice

00:18:30.780 --> 00:18:33.835
Age in Europe at the end
of the 18th century.

00:18:37.020 --> 00:18:41.350
All of that landscape to the
horizon is lava from Laki.

00:18:41.350 --> 00:18:45.470
It completely altered Iceland's
southern shore.

00:18:45.470 --> 00:18:50.420
So we are looking at the lava
field from Laki in 1783.

00:18:50.420 --> 00:18:54.570
The fissure is some 50
kilometers north of us and the

00:18:54.570 --> 00:18:59.030
lava flowed down the valley of
Skaftadarlur, and actually

00:18:59.030 --> 00:19:02.430
followed the channel of
Skafta, Skafta River.

00:19:02.430 --> 00:19:06.275
And the first thing that the
locals noticed was that the

00:19:06.275 --> 00:19:08.390
river actually dried
up because the

00:19:08.390 --> 00:19:11.300
lava dammed the river.

00:19:11.300 --> 00:19:14.720
And then they saw, of course,
smoke up north.

00:19:14.720 --> 00:19:17.660
And then eventually, the lava
came down here and it spread

00:19:17.660 --> 00:19:19.300
out on the lowland.

00:19:19.300 --> 00:19:23.260
Flowing down from our right to
our left, it's literally a sea

00:19:23.260 --> 00:19:24.305
of lava, isn't It.

00:19:24.305 --> 00:19:26.140
The scale is unbelievable.

00:19:26.140 --> 00:19:26.770
It is.

00:19:26.770 --> 00:19:30.330
And this was the largest lava
flow anywhere on the planet in

00:19:30.330 --> 00:19:31.660
the last 10,000 years.

00:19:31.660 --> 00:19:32.121
Yeah.

00:19:32.121 --> 00:19:33.371
Yeah.

00:19:37.200 --> 00:19:41.000
The gases from Laki poisoned
all the farmers grass and

00:19:41.000 --> 00:19:42.940
killed off the livestock.

00:19:42.940 --> 00:19:46.560
25% of the Icelandic
population died.

00:19:50.435 --> 00:19:53.560
So this would have been a real
scary place in 1783.

00:19:53.560 --> 00:19:55.790
Yes, definitely.

00:19:55.790 --> 00:19:59.770
And after it sort of froze here,
it became an obstacle

00:19:59.770 --> 00:20:01.810
for transportation.

00:20:01.810 --> 00:20:05.010
Of course, it destroyed
a lot of farms.

00:20:05.010 --> 00:20:08.810
And, I mean, there wasn't a
decent road going through here

00:20:08.810 --> 00:20:11.790
until in the '80s.

00:20:11.790 --> 00:20:16.830
And looking around, you can see
all these different forms

00:20:16.830 --> 00:20:17.490
here in the lava.

00:20:17.490 --> 00:20:18.520
These eerie shapes.

00:20:18.520 --> 00:20:18.760
Yeah.

00:20:18.760 --> 00:20:23.560
It relates strongly to
the mythology here.

00:20:23.560 --> 00:20:28.600
People walk across, they see
faces, the see trolls.

00:20:28.600 --> 00:20:31.250
It's not difficult to
imagine walking

00:20:31.250 --> 00:20:33.620
through here in the night.

00:20:33.620 --> 00:20:35.160
So this is a place they
would've kept out of.

00:20:35.160 --> 00:20:35.590
Yeah.

00:20:35.590 --> 00:20:36.885
They would've been
scared of it.

00:20:36.885 --> 00:20:39.980
So has this been embedded in
the Icelandic culture?

00:20:39.980 --> 00:20:41.390
Yeah, I would say so.

00:20:41.390 --> 00:20:43.350
Yeah, definitely.

00:20:43.350 --> 00:20:47.230
In fact, the locals here still
talk about the time before the

00:20:47.230 --> 00:20:48.625
fires and after the fires.

00:20:48.625 --> 00:20:53.345
It's still a time mark sort of
for the local history here,

00:20:53.345 --> 00:20:59.290
even though it was as
far back as 1783.

00:20:59.290 --> 00:21:02.640
As far as Icelanders are
concerned, the whole southern

00:21:02.640 --> 00:21:06.440
coast could be dramatically
altered again with one big

00:21:06.440 --> 00:21:08.160
volcanic blast.

00:21:08.160 --> 00:21:11.240
The lava could conceivably pour
right over the top of

00:21:11.240 --> 00:21:15.650
this, one layer on
top of another.

00:21:15.650 --> 00:21:17.330
That's how plates are built.

00:21:17.330 --> 00:21:21.020
And it's also the reality of
life here, a deep cultural

00:21:21.020 --> 00:21:24.900
understanding that the Earth
will behave however it wants,

00:21:24.900 --> 00:21:26.150
whenever it wants to.

00:21:29.055 --> 00:21:36.126
So this is where fiery red hot
magma has flowed out and

00:21:36.126 --> 00:21:40.500
cooled quite quickly.

00:21:40.500 --> 00:21:44.740
Icelandic legends say this
basalt is actually made out of

00:21:44.740 --> 00:21:46.992
petrified trolls.

00:21:46.992 --> 00:21:48.350
Like organ pipes.

00:21:48.350 --> 00:21:49.970
Yeah.

00:21:49.970 --> 00:21:51.143
They are.

00:21:51.143 --> 00:21:54.610
It's a very fine grain
rock too, isn't it.

00:21:54.610 --> 00:21:56.540
I can't see any large
crystals in there.

00:21:56.540 --> 00:22:00.210
But scientists say these organ
pipes were actually made

00:22:00.210 --> 00:22:04.110
millions of years ago, when
highly fluid molten rock

00:22:04.110 --> 00:22:06.980
rapidly cooled and took
on these shapes.

00:22:06.980 --> 00:22:08.850
The top of the flow is
up there and it's

00:22:08.850 --> 00:22:10.620
bottom is down here.

00:22:10.620 --> 00:22:14.470
The more rapidly cooling,
the smaller the columns.

00:22:14.470 --> 00:22:18.990
And if it's very rapid, they
can wind up forming a cube.

00:22:18.990 --> 00:22:22.290
It's a stark reminder of how
active the mechanics

00:22:22.290 --> 00:22:23.540
of the earth are.

00:22:27.940 --> 00:22:31.990
Up to the end of the 18th
century, man made dogmatic

00:22:31.990 --> 00:22:34.990
assumptions about his own
prominence in the

00:22:34.990 --> 00:22:36.300
story of the world.

00:22:36.300 --> 00:22:39.365
It was young and made
for him by God.

00:22:43.990 --> 00:22:48.050
Then, the new science of geology
emerged, secularizing

00:22:48.050 --> 00:22:51.100
our understanding of the Earth,
taking man out of the

00:22:51.100 --> 00:22:55.460
center of the story and
replacing him with science.

00:22:55.460 --> 00:22:59.180
The first geologists turned up
a tale in the rocks that no

00:22:59.180 --> 00:23:01.080
one ever imagined could exist.

00:23:15.230 --> 00:23:18.735
The Scottish capital of
Edinburgh is a geological city

00:23:18.735 --> 00:23:22.345
if there ever was one.

00:23:22.345 --> 00:23:25.200
The old part of downtown
was built along a

00:23:25.200 --> 00:23:26.450
high glacial ridge.

00:23:30.100 --> 00:23:34.060
That's why the Royal Mile is
so steep, as are the stone

00:23:34.060 --> 00:23:36.915
steps that run back and forth
between the thoroughfare.

00:23:40.532 --> 00:23:43.640
Edinburgh Castle sits
strategically high above the

00:23:43.640 --> 00:23:48.150
city, built on the plug of an
old volcano that last erupted

00:23:48.150 --> 00:23:52.210
350 million years ago.

00:23:52.210 --> 00:23:56.230
The castle's base is a giant
mound of volcanic rock.

00:23:59.330 --> 00:24:02.850
There's a wonderful Gothic
spookiness to Edinburgh.

00:24:02.850 --> 00:24:04.870
A lot of it has to
do with the rock.

00:24:07.660 --> 00:24:11.450
The Grayfriars Kirkyard is
filled with many a stone

00:24:11.450 --> 00:24:13.195
masons visions of death.

00:24:24.010 --> 00:24:28.570
Off in the corner, there's a
simple plaque, James Hutton,

00:24:28.570 --> 00:24:31.040
Founder of Modern Geology.

00:24:31.040 --> 00:24:32.620
If you weren't looking
for Hutton's

00:24:32.620 --> 00:24:34.070
plaque, you'd miss it.

00:24:34.070 --> 00:24:37.620
But geologists make pilgrimages
to this spot.

00:24:37.620 --> 00:24:41.240
Hutton was an 18th century
scientist who used to make

00:24:41.240 --> 00:24:44.390
regular hikes around the
Salisbury Crags, a big

00:24:44.390 --> 00:24:48.000
important hunk of Highland
geology right in Edinburgh.

00:24:48.000 --> 00:24:51.690
And it was while trekking here
that he came upon his big

00:24:51.690 --> 00:24:56.230
idea, that the world was born
from heat and was much older

00:24:56.230 --> 00:24:58.770
than scholars said it was.

00:24:58.770 --> 00:25:03.140
In 1650, James Usher, the Bishop
of Ireland, carefully

00:25:03.140 --> 00:25:05.760
worked through the Bible
and did the math.

00:25:05.760 --> 00:25:09.410
He determined that creation
took place on the 23rd of

00:25:09.410 --> 00:25:12.813
October 4,004 BC, a Sunday.

00:25:15.580 --> 00:25:19.510
By the late 18th century, the
earth was almost 6,000 years

00:25:19.510 --> 00:25:23.040
old by Usher's figuring, born
out of the great flood as

00:25:23.040 --> 00:25:27.460
described in the Bible, until
Hutton said the earth was much

00:25:27.460 --> 00:25:29.866
older and born out of fire.

00:25:29.866 --> 00:25:35.630
Hutton was a farmer and he was
very interested in soil, about

00:25:35.630 --> 00:25:39.550
the sustainability, the
habitability of the planet.

00:25:39.550 --> 00:25:43.660
And although he believed in God,
he argued that God had

00:25:43.660 --> 00:25:47.170
got the earth going, and then
these cycles based on heat in

00:25:47.170 --> 00:25:51.315
the inside of the planet
resulted in uplift, renewal,

00:25:51.315 --> 00:25:55.782
and subsidence and deposition.

00:25:55.782 --> 00:26:00.660
And so the earth hadn't been
created in a very short time

00:26:00.660 --> 00:26:03.220
as the dominant theories
had it.

00:26:03.220 --> 00:26:05.750
And then of course that
completely destroyed

00:26:05.750 --> 00:26:08.880
ultimately the idea that the
earth's surface was a product

00:26:08.880 --> 00:26:11.495
simply of large floods,
Noah's flood.

00:26:11.495 --> 00:26:12.980
It couldn't be because
rocks had been

00:26:12.980 --> 00:26:14.785
produced in a molten state.

00:26:14.785 --> 00:26:18.790
At the end of the day, he's
the father of geology.

00:26:18.790 --> 00:26:20.050
He was the first guy to realize

00:26:20.050 --> 00:26:21.170
it wasn't just biblical.

00:26:21.170 --> 00:26:22.960
This is called Hutton's
Section.

00:26:22.960 --> 00:26:26.060
It doesn't look like much, a
seam in the rock just off a

00:26:26.060 --> 00:26:29.090
foot path, but students come up
here from the University of

00:26:29.090 --> 00:26:31.000
Edinburgh as part of
their studies.

00:26:31.000 --> 00:26:32.180
It's not that.

00:26:32.180 --> 00:26:34.190
It's not as impressive as
some of the geological

00:26:34.190 --> 00:26:36.620
outcrops you can find.

00:26:36.620 --> 00:26:40.270
It's not even as obvious
as it could be.

00:26:40.270 --> 00:26:42.150
But nonetheless, critical.

00:26:42.150 --> 00:26:45.870
I think what makes Hutton unique
and what the scientist

00:26:45.870 --> 00:26:49.760
that we know, the kind of real
scientists that make progress

00:26:49.760 --> 00:26:52.120
in science, they see things
other people have seen, but

00:26:52.120 --> 00:26:52.870
they see them differently.

00:26:52.870 --> 00:26:54.590
And I think that's what
happened out here.

00:26:54.590 --> 00:26:57.460
And his big new idea was that
some rocks had been formed in

00:26:57.460 --> 00:27:00.210
a molten state, because the
dominant idea at that time was

00:27:00.210 --> 00:27:01.670
everything was produced
by water.

00:27:01.670 --> 00:27:01.880
Yeah.

00:27:01.880 --> 00:27:03.840
Noah's flood, all that stuff.

00:27:03.840 --> 00:27:06.390
Hutton got down in here and
realized that two different

00:27:06.390 --> 00:27:10.140
kinds of rock where blended
together, as if one kind was

00:27:10.140 --> 00:27:12.100
injected into the other.

00:27:12.100 --> 00:27:14.920
That meant that they had to have
been superheated at one

00:27:14.920 --> 00:27:17.060
time, molten.

00:27:17.060 --> 00:27:19.360
If you go in closer and look
at the two different rock

00:27:19.360 --> 00:27:22.750
types, the top one is made of
small crystals, which is

00:27:22.750 --> 00:27:24.080
typical of volcanic rock.

00:27:24.080 --> 00:27:26.530
Whereas the one beneath it is
clearly made of separate

00:27:26.530 --> 00:27:30.070
particles and [INAUDIBLE], and
it's kind of laminated in a

00:27:30.070 --> 00:27:31.550
way that the top one isn't.

00:27:31.550 --> 00:27:33.580
So you've clearly got two
different rock types.

00:27:33.580 --> 00:27:37.330
And so Hutton's vision was of
this being liquid magma

00:27:37.330 --> 00:27:39.650
seeping in through the rocks
and destroying the existing

00:27:39.650 --> 00:27:41.530
rock, bending and
twisting it out.

00:27:41.530 --> 00:27:43.635
Close to the city of Edinburgh
within just a few hundred

00:27:43.635 --> 00:27:44.540
yards of his house.

00:27:44.540 --> 00:27:46.660
Yeah, a great example he can
bring people to and he can

00:27:46.660 --> 00:27:50.280
say, look, here's evidence that
it wasn't just layers on

00:27:50.280 --> 00:27:51.060
the sea bed.

00:27:51.060 --> 00:27:52.115
Something else has
happened here.

00:27:52.115 --> 00:27:54.140
There's different rocks form
at different times, and

00:27:54.140 --> 00:27:56.170
therefore the big jump is
the earth is ancient.

00:28:04.010 --> 00:28:07.610
After Hutton recorded his
section in Edinburgh, he took

00:28:07.610 --> 00:28:10.300
to the sea in search
of more evidence.

00:28:10.300 --> 00:28:13.450
He had already found that
younger rocks didn't rests

00:28:13.450 --> 00:28:17.250
easily on top of older rocks,
but were separated by breaks

00:28:17.250 --> 00:28:20.435
in the time scale he called
unconformities.

00:28:20.435 --> 00:28:24.650
The story in the layers didn't
always make sense since some

00:28:24.650 --> 00:28:27.655
of those layers had eroded,
they were missing.

00:28:27.655 --> 00:28:32.000
To Hutton, that meant the old
biblical theory was wrong.

00:28:32.000 --> 00:28:34.050
The earth could never have come

00:28:34.050 --> 00:28:36.590
ready-made out of a flood.

00:28:36.590 --> 00:28:39.490
So this is where deep time
was first discovered.

00:28:39.490 --> 00:28:40.900
This is it, yeah.

00:28:40.900 --> 00:28:43.775
He needed a place to
demonstrate it.

00:28:43.775 --> 00:28:47.910
I can imagine him jumping off
the boat here and finding

00:28:47.910 --> 00:28:50.490
certainly the best unconformity
he'd ever seen,

00:28:50.490 --> 00:28:52.890
the best unconformity
that I've ever seen.

00:28:52.890 --> 00:28:54.820
And this is where his colleague
John Playfair said

00:28:54.820 --> 00:28:57.765
he felt giddy looking into
the abyss of time.

00:28:57.765 --> 00:28:58.590
Yeah.

00:28:58.590 --> 00:29:00.130
Such a brilliant idea.

00:29:00.130 --> 00:29:04.020
And because it was such a step
forward, when used now, it's

00:29:04.020 --> 00:29:08.090
talking about millions of years
and billions of years,

00:29:08.090 --> 00:29:11.290
but we talk about it without
maybe really understanding

00:29:11.290 --> 00:29:12.820
this great passage of time.

00:29:12.820 --> 00:29:15.320
These rocks meant the
earth had a history.

00:29:15.320 --> 00:29:18.650
The amount of time it took to
make these rocks, fold them,

00:29:18.650 --> 00:29:22.740
break them, stand them on end
and lay new rocks over top was

00:29:22.740 --> 00:29:27.132
all Hutton needed to prove the
existence of deep time.

00:29:27.132 --> 00:29:27.624
Yeah.

00:29:27.624 --> 00:29:30.670
I think we'll get an excellent
view here of the unconformity.

00:29:30.670 --> 00:29:34.190
The strongly vertical rocks
here, gray colored, and then

00:29:34.190 --> 00:29:36.850
the sheets of red
rocks on top.

00:29:36.850 --> 00:29:36.970
Yeah.

00:29:36.970 --> 00:29:40.040
It's a fantastic
view from here.

00:29:40.040 --> 00:29:42.916
I mean, you're close into
the detail there,

00:29:42.916 --> 00:29:44.230
the layers on top.

00:29:44.230 --> 00:29:46.610
The lowest layers of the red
sandstone have got bits of the

00:29:46.610 --> 00:29:47.380
gray matter included.

00:29:47.380 --> 00:29:50.200
So for Hutton, that was one
of the important pieces of

00:29:50.200 --> 00:29:50.720
evidence from here.

00:29:50.720 --> 00:29:52.670
The direct connection between
the old rocks and the new.

00:30:01.890 --> 00:30:05.370
The British Isles are in the
middle of the European plate

00:30:05.370 --> 00:30:07.480
and they are subject
to pressures that

00:30:07.480 --> 00:30:08.770
come from both ends.

00:30:14.740 --> 00:30:18.180
This is Hadrian's Wall, just
south of the Scottish border.

00:30:18.180 --> 00:30:21.530
It marked the northern edge of
the Roman Empire, and the

00:30:21.530 --> 00:30:24.695
Romans built their wall here
to keep out the Scotts.

00:30:30.530 --> 00:30:34.425
It is sort of ironic that the
Romans built this wall to try

00:30:34.425 --> 00:30:37.105
and separate the Scotts from the
English and try and undo

00:30:37.105 --> 00:30:39.820
what plate tectonics had done
400 million years earlier.

00:30:46.300 --> 00:30:49.680
Well, this whole area, we're
in the far northern part of

00:30:49.680 --> 00:30:54.860
England, records the plate
tectonic suturing, welding

00:30:54.860 --> 00:30:57.610
together England, which used to
be quite a separate little

00:30:57.610 --> 00:31:01.340
land mass with Scotland, and
that occurred about 400

00:31:01.340 --> 00:31:05.630
million years ago when a
previous ocean, previous to

00:31:05.630 --> 00:31:06.840
the Atlantic, closed.

00:31:06.840 --> 00:31:08.275
And that's called the
Iapetus Ocean.

00:31:11.470 --> 00:31:15.790
So this area illustrates how the
European plate got built.

00:31:15.790 --> 00:31:18.260
And there's been a whole
succession of these little

00:31:18.260 --> 00:31:22.530
collisions to build up this
larger mosaic that we now call

00:31:22.530 --> 00:31:24.310
the European plate.

00:31:24.310 --> 00:31:27.460
That mosaic, though, is subject
to an immense amount

00:31:27.460 --> 00:31:28.260
of torsion.

00:31:28.260 --> 00:31:32.160
You just need to go and look at
cross sections on the coast

00:31:32.160 --> 00:31:35.240
of the English Channel to
see how intense the

00:31:35.240 --> 00:31:38.460
pressure can be.

00:31:38.460 --> 00:31:41.330
Start in Kimmeridge
and Dorset.

00:31:41.330 --> 00:31:44.660
Each thin and delicate wafer
of shale here represents a

00:31:44.660 --> 00:31:48.480
layer of sediment layed down
into a shallow tropical sea

00:31:48.480 --> 00:31:51.940
175 million years ago.

00:31:51.940 --> 00:31:54.370
These layers have basically
been untouched.

00:31:54.370 --> 00:31:56.322
They appear as they
were created.

00:31:56.322 --> 00:31:59.750
They're so orderly that
geologists can even tell how

00:31:59.750 --> 00:32:02.590
old these shales are by looking
at the types of

00:32:02.590 --> 00:32:04.900
fossils trapped between them.

00:32:04.900 --> 00:32:05.860
Yeah, these are pages.

00:32:05.860 --> 00:32:08.200
Imaginable a book just turned on
its edge and we've got the

00:32:08.200 --> 00:32:10.260
pages exposed right here
in front of us.

00:32:10.260 --> 00:32:12.590
As we go up through the pages,
we're going through the book,

00:32:12.590 --> 00:32:13.940
we're going through
the chapters.

00:32:13.940 --> 00:32:17.890
And instead of numbers on each
page, we have what we call

00:32:17.890 --> 00:32:21.170
zone fossils, which are
consistent groups of fossils

00:32:21.170 --> 00:32:22.610
found within each layer.

00:32:22.610 --> 00:32:25.650
They may be very small
microfossils, such as in these

00:32:25.650 --> 00:32:30.530
shales, these were muds on the
ocean floor, or they may be

00:32:30.530 --> 00:32:32.270
large ammonites.

00:32:32.270 --> 00:32:34.830
But either way, they change
through time.

00:32:34.830 --> 00:32:38.540
By recognizing the distinct form
of the microfossil or the

00:32:38.540 --> 00:32:40.820
macrofossil, we can actually
put a relative

00:32:40.820 --> 00:32:42.090
age on these rocks.

00:32:42.090 --> 00:32:44.950
We can say this layer is older
than one that's younger.

00:32:51.850 --> 00:32:54.910
Just down from Kimmeridge,
holiday makers search the

00:32:54.910 --> 00:32:59.020
bluffs at Lyme Regis
for larger fossils.

00:32:59.020 --> 00:33:01.760
So many fossils have been found
in the layers of rock

00:33:01.760 --> 00:33:07.830
here that the region has been
renamed the Jurassic Coast.

00:33:07.830 --> 00:33:11.240
And no one searches more keenly
for Jurassic fossils in

00:33:11.240 --> 00:33:16.460
Lyme Regis than Steve Davies,
who runs his own museum here.

00:33:16.460 --> 00:33:19.680
This is full of them,
isn't it.

00:33:19.680 --> 00:33:21.800
We can see just looking at this
we've got quite a range

00:33:21.800 --> 00:33:25.240
of different shapes and
sizes of the beasties.

00:33:25.240 --> 00:33:27.420
But as you go up through
geological time in the

00:33:27.420 --> 00:33:33.050
Jurassic, there are thousands of
different species, varying

00:33:33.050 --> 00:33:38.730
in terms of size and the ribs
that grow on it, the coiling.

00:33:38.730 --> 00:33:40.900
Sometimes they're tightly
coiled, sometimes they're

00:33:40.900 --> 00:33:42.310
really open coiling.

00:33:42.310 --> 00:33:46.400
So the important concepts about
time and almost bar

00:33:46.400 --> 00:33:49.610
coding different rock layers
by their fossils.

00:33:49.610 --> 00:33:52.895
You can recognize distinctions
in those ammonites, the zones

00:33:52.895 --> 00:33:57.290
and the subzones, with a
resolution of maybe 1/4 of a

00:33:57.290 --> 00:33:59.760
million years of time.

00:33:59.760 --> 00:34:01.470
That's like being able
to recognize an

00:34:01.470 --> 00:34:04.080
instant in our day.

00:34:04.080 --> 00:34:04.660
It's amazing detail.

00:34:04.660 --> 00:34:07.550
So you could tell the rate
on the evolution itself.

00:34:07.550 --> 00:34:09.580
You can do that, yeah.

00:34:09.580 --> 00:34:13.040
It is the fundamental bit
of geology that you can

00:34:13.040 --> 00:34:17.460
categorize a body of rock by
it's fossils and track it

00:34:17.460 --> 00:34:20.960
across same fossils,
same rock.

00:34:20.960 --> 00:34:23.949
You don't need to be thinking
in terms of Darwin and

00:34:23.949 --> 00:34:26.610
evolution and millions
of years, just same

00:34:26.610 --> 00:34:30.340
fossils, same rocks.

00:34:30.340 --> 00:34:33.739
Now look at those same rocks
down the shore a bit from

00:34:33.739 --> 00:34:36.732
Kimmeridge and Lyme Regis.

00:34:36.732 --> 00:34:40.370
Here at Lulworth Cove, the
effects of the compression are

00:34:40.370 --> 00:34:41.620
pretty clear.

00:34:44.730 --> 00:34:47.670
The question is, where did
that pressure come from?

00:34:50.440 --> 00:34:55.080
Well, these rocks have been body
checked by Africa coming

00:34:55.080 --> 00:34:56.949
up from the south.

00:34:56.949 --> 00:35:00.040
Think of a bow wave in front
of a huge tanker, think of

00:35:00.040 --> 00:35:02.540
Africa as a giant tanker coming
up north, so right

00:35:02.540 --> 00:35:05.830
close to the bow you've got
intense folding in the Alps.

00:35:05.830 --> 00:35:08.440
A little bit further away, you
have smaller waves, but

00:35:08.440 --> 00:35:12.410
essentially it's a big bow wave
on a giant scale as one

00:35:12.410 --> 00:35:15.420
continent plows into
another plate.

00:35:15.420 --> 00:35:19.210
And it gently rippled the rocks
to give us these folds

00:35:19.210 --> 00:35:20.465
and the gently rolling
countryside.

00:35:24.460 --> 00:35:28.020
When I first came here, this was
in the '60s, and geology

00:35:28.020 --> 00:35:31.390
was really very much concerned
with stratigraphy, the

00:35:31.390 --> 00:35:33.600
relative age dating of rocks.

00:35:33.600 --> 00:35:35.980
Rocks are older than these,
these that are younger than

00:35:35.980 --> 00:35:37.890
those, and so on.

00:35:37.890 --> 00:35:43.220
These are my notes that I made
when I was a student of

00:35:43.220 --> 00:35:46.250
geology, a late teenager.

00:35:46.250 --> 00:35:49.090
We had to keep a notebook where
we describe what we saw,

00:35:49.090 --> 00:35:54.610
and I set up here and made
sketches of these very cliffs.

00:35:54.610 --> 00:35:57.610
So that's Stair Hole, this
is the Lulworth Crumple.

00:35:57.610 --> 00:36:05.360
These were flat-lying Jurassic
rocks and they've been pushed

00:36:05.360 --> 00:36:09.420
by African plate coming
up from the south.

00:36:09.420 --> 00:36:12.480
Coming back today and seeing
this, I see this in a

00:36:12.480 --> 00:36:13.545
completely different light.

00:36:13.545 --> 00:36:16.810
It's not just layers anymore,
it's deposits of

00:36:16.810 --> 00:36:18.655
a now extinct ocean.

00:36:18.655 --> 00:36:23.230
And I can now put this in a
plate tectonic content and

00:36:23.230 --> 00:36:26.385
look at this in its global
perspective.

00:36:26.385 --> 00:36:29.380
So there's been this tremendous
development of

00:36:29.380 --> 00:36:33.980
plate tectonic science, and the
revelation has really been

00:36:33.980 --> 00:36:37.140
of the recognition that
continents come together, they

00:36:37.140 --> 00:36:40.140
form supercontinents, and
then they break up.

00:36:40.140 --> 00:36:45.450
And that's a sort of basic cycle
maybe 250, 300 million

00:36:45.450 --> 00:36:47.070
years, maybe a little
bit more, of

00:36:47.070 --> 00:36:48.960
most of earth history.

00:36:48.960 --> 00:36:52.340
So everything is connected
tectonically.

00:36:52.340 --> 00:36:55.260
The edge of England is crumpled
by the onslaught of

00:36:55.260 --> 00:37:00.340
pressure coming from Africa,
hundreds of kilometers away.

00:37:00.340 --> 00:37:03.770
But it is nothing compared to
what happened closer to the

00:37:03.770 --> 00:37:06.140
collision zone, where
the mountains are.

00:37:22.561 --> 00:37:26.050
The Alps touch six countries
in Europe, including

00:37:26.050 --> 00:37:27.300
Switzerland.

00:37:38.672 --> 00:37:42.790
The very term Alpine, which has
come to embody all things

00:37:42.790 --> 00:37:45.120
mountainous, comes from here.

00:37:45.120 --> 00:37:48.096
Skiing, yodeling, and
mountain climbing.

00:38:03.472 --> 00:38:07.370
But geologists see the Alps
as more than that.

00:38:07.370 --> 00:38:11.080
They see a story of tectonic
violence and the earth in the

00:38:11.080 --> 00:38:13.670
throes of contorted change.

00:38:13.670 --> 00:38:16.670
Iceland was what they called
the passive end of the

00:38:16.670 --> 00:38:18.064
Eurasian plate.

00:38:18.064 --> 00:38:22.510
This is the active end.

00:38:22.510 --> 00:38:23.240
Shall we?

00:38:23.240 --> 00:38:23.870
Yes.

00:38:23.870 --> 00:38:26.450
Go to the top of
the Matterhorn.

00:38:26.450 --> 00:38:30.430
Geologist Steven Johnson, from
the University of Victoria,

00:38:30.430 --> 00:38:32.370
has spent years tramping
around the Alps.

00:38:32.370 --> 00:38:34.000
Wow, what a day, eh?

00:38:34.000 --> 00:38:34.800
I mean really.

00:38:34.800 --> 00:38:35.015
Yeah.

00:38:35.015 --> 00:38:35.905
We're very lucky, aren't we?

00:38:35.905 --> 00:38:36.400
Yeah.

00:38:36.400 --> 00:38:39.790
His specialty is studying the
structure of mountains and

00:38:39.790 --> 00:38:42.510
he's been working on how
the Alps were formed.

00:38:42.510 --> 00:38:43.346
Yeah.

00:38:43.346 --> 00:38:44.182
Yeah.

00:38:44.182 --> 00:38:48.320
All of this rock actually was
deposited south of the

00:38:48.320 --> 00:38:50.910
European continent
on oceanic crust.

00:38:50.910 --> 00:38:51.830
Yeah.

00:38:51.830 --> 00:38:53.080
Yeah.

00:38:55.050 --> 00:39:00.110
Africa is moving north and its
northern end is colliding with

00:39:00.110 --> 00:39:02.620
Europe and giving us this
mountain range.

00:39:02.620 --> 00:39:04.960
So the rocks that we see in
this lower part of the

00:39:04.960 --> 00:39:08.405
mountains were, again, marine
rocks deposited in an ocean

00:39:08.405 --> 00:39:10.840
that has long ago
ceased to exist.

00:39:10.840 --> 00:39:11.800
Yeah.

00:39:11.800 --> 00:39:14.640
Basically, it was caught up.

00:39:14.640 --> 00:39:17.430
It's a pretty safe rule to
follow that when continents

00:39:17.430 --> 00:39:19.730
collide, seas die.

00:39:19.730 --> 00:39:23.000
There was, at one time, another
sea between the

00:39:23.000 --> 00:39:24.900
African and European plates.

00:39:24.900 --> 00:39:27.090
It was called the Tethys.

00:39:27.090 --> 00:39:29.260
But it was victimized
by the onslaught

00:39:29.260 --> 00:39:30.745
of the African plate.

00:39:30.745 --> 00:39:34.670
It plowed underneath the Tethys
and then bulldozed into

00:39:34.670 --> 00:39:36.790
the European plate.

00:39:36.790 --> 00:39:42.810
We know that the ocean started
to close enough to affect

00:39:42.810 --> 00:39:46.980
Europe in the Jurassic, so some
180 million years ago.

00:39:46.980 --> 00:39:50.950
We started to see the European
continent bending down,

00:39:50.950 --> 00:39:55.530
getting flooded by the ocean,
and its being dragged down by

00:39:55.530 --> 00:39:59.120
this oceanic plate sinking
down beneath Africa.

00:39:59.120 --> 00:40:02.550
And as it sinks down, Africa
advances on Europe.

00:40:02.550 --> 00:40:05.080
And the real collision, though,
doesn't start until

00:40:05.080 --> 00:40:06.060
much later.

00:40:06.060 --> 00:40:09.480
Less than 100 million years
ago, probably around 60

00:40:09.480 --> 00:40:12.050
million years ago.

00:40:12.050 --> 00:40:13.870
It's a long process.

00:40:13.870 --> 00:40:16.480
The plates only move
centimeters, maybe 10

00:40:16.480 --> 00:40:20.770
centimeters a year, so it's
snail-like compared to the way

00:40:20.770 --> 00:40:22.785
humans think and the
way humans observe.

00:40:26.740 --> 00:40:27.070
Yes.

00:40:27.070 --> 00:40:28.340
Go on.

00:40:28.340 --> 00:40:31.806
Let's go and do some walking
and look at some rocks.

00:40:36.699 --> 00:40:39.676
It's an iconic view, isn't it.

00:40:39.676 --> 00:40:40.100
God.

00:40:40.100 --> 00:40:43.020
Just amazing.

00:40:43.020 --> 00:40:46.050
I can see why they call
a lot of their high

00:40:46.050 --> 00:40:48.420
mountains tonn, teeth.

00:40:48.420 --> 00:40:49.320
Yeah.

00:40:49.320 --> 00:40:52.390
They might look like teeth now,
but all of this rock was

00:40:52.390 --> 00:40:56.370
originally huge blocks after
the continental collision.

00:40:56.370 --> 00:40:59.520
The shifting of the plates
caused the blocks to pile on

00:40:59.520 --> 00:41:00.960
top of each other.

00:41:00.960 --> 00:41:04.590
Then the glaciers moved in and
started sculpting the blocks

00:41:04.590 --> 00:41:06.350
into the mountains
we see today.

00:41:06.350 --> 00:41:09.030
Yeah, it's worth remembering
isn't it, that the rocks that

00:41:09.030 --> 00:41:12.310
make up the mountain are old,
but the mountain itself is

00:41:12.310 --> 00:41:13.400
almost brand new.

00:41:13.400 --> 00:41:16.140
It's being formed all
the time by erosion.

00:41:16.140 --> 00:41:18.930
How long did it take to make
a mountain like that?

00:41:18.930 --> 00:41:23.080
Well, it's been cut by glacial
erosion and glaciers have only

00:41:23.080 --> 00:41:25.980
been in this area for the last
couple of million years, so

00:41:25.980 --> 00:41:29.512
it's a very, very young
mountain chain.

00:41:29.512 --> 00:41:30.762
Yeah.

00:41:33.850 --> 00:41:36.740
Geologists are really
storytellers and they gather

00:41:36.740 --> 00:41:39.860
their material by clambering
over rocks.

00:41:39.860 --> 00:41:42.750
Steve is following some evidence
here that helps tell

00:41:42.750 --> 00:41:45.770
the story of mountains and
plates and lavas and

00:41:45.770 --> 00:41:49.266
continental uplift all on
one single boulder.

00:41:49.266 --> 00:41:51.680
What do you think
we have here?

00:41:51.680 --> 00:41:54.350
These are actually fascinating
right here, the kind of shapes

00:41:54.350 --> 00:41:56.000
we're seeing in the rock here.

00:41:56.000 --> 00:41:59.275
Can you see this little ridge
that runs out here like this?

00:41:59.275 --> 00:41:59.560
Yeah.

00:41:59.560 --> 00:42:00.840
Sort of a rim.

00:42:00.840 --> 00:42:01.200
Yeah.

00:42:01.200 --> 00:42:01.890
Like a rim.

00:42:01.890 --> 00:42:03.750
It comes all the way
back around.

00:42:03.750 --> 00:42:06.230
There's another one here
that goes out.

00:42:06.230 --> 00:42:08.450
I think these are pillow
basalts that

00:42:08.450 --> 00:42:10.455
have been highly deformed.

00:42:10.455 --> 00:42:12.540
It's been squeezed
and flattened.

00:42:15.670 --> 00:42:19.980
Pillow basalts are formed by a
volcanic eruption underwater.

00:42:19.980 --> 00:42:23.110
When the lava hits the cold
water, the surface hardens

00:42:23.110 --> 00:42:26.120
into a pillow shape.

00:42:26.120 --> 00:42:29.600
The presence of old, flattened
pillow basalts here means that

00:42:29.600 --> 00:42:32.160
this was once part of
an ocean floor.

00:42:32.160 --> 00:42:35.100
And the makeup of the rest of
the rock says that this

00:42:35.100 --> 00:42:38.410
boulder has been on an amazing
tectonic journey.

00:42:38.410 --> 00:42:40.290
So this is conclusive
evidence of the

00:42:40.290 --> 00:42:42.081
existence of a former ocean.

00:42:42.081 --> 00:42:42.311
Yeah.

00:42:42.311 --> 00:42:42.542
Yeah.

00:42:42.542 --> 00:42:45.310
Between Europe and Africa.

00:42:45.310 --> 00:42:48.520
So this would have been crust
sitting under six kilometers

00:42:48.520 --> 00:42:50.620
of water in an ocean.

00:42:50.620 --> 00:42:54.310
And then you notice, well, it's
flattened, but also all

00:42:54.310 --> 00:42:57.410
of the micas and metamorphic
minerals in here, these things

00:42:57.410 --> 00:42:59.680
have been highly
metamorphosed.

00:42:59.680 --> 00:43:02.090
And in fact, you can see little
pock marks in here that

00:43:02.090 --> 00:43:05.040
are little red garnets.

00:43:05.040 --> 00:43:08.140
This a rock we call eclogite.

00:43:08.140 --> 00:43:10.910
So this has been subducted
down below Africa--

00:43:10.910 --> 00:43:11.650
This was--

00:43:11.650 --> 00:43:12.590
--to great depths.

00:43:12.590 --> 00:43:16.270
Maybe 100 kilometers down
into the Earth.

00:43:16.270 --> 00:43:19.420
The thing that always amazes me
about this kind of rock is

00:43:19.420 --> 00:43:22.810
how can you take a rock like
this down 100 kilometers and

00:43:22.810 --> 00:43:24.090
then get it back
to the surface.

00:43:24.090 --> 00:43:26.480
It seems unbelievable.

00:43:26.480 --> 00:43:29.140
You need to erode a lot of
crust on top, don't you.

00:43:29.140 --> 00:43:33.020
It's a balance between coming
down into the rocks and more

00:43:33.020 --> 00:43:36.840
rock being brought
up and exposed.

00:43:36.840 --> 00:43:37.580
Yeah.

00:43:37.580 --> 00:43:40.290
I think you'd have a hard
time, though, with just

00:43:40.290 --> 00:43:42.170
erosion getting this back
to the surface.

00:43:42.170 --> 00:43:45.120
I think somehow the African
plate must act like a

00:43:45.120 --> 00:43:48.640
bulldozer and it caught a piece
of the oceanic crust and

00:43:48.640 --> 00:43:49.810
brought it all the
way back up.

00:43:49.810 --> 00:43:51.380
Almost like an elevator.

00:43:51.380 --> 00:43:51.850
Yeah.

00:43:51.850 --> 00:43:53.100
Yeah.

00:43:57.580 --> 00:44:02.060
At just under 4,500 meters, the
Matterhorn is one of the

00:44:02.060 --> 00:44:05.540
highest mountains in the Alps,
straddling the border between

00:44:05.540 --> 00:44:07.012
Switzerland and Italy.

00:44:10.710 --> 00:44:14.260
The four faces point to the four
corners of the compass.

00:44:14.260 --> 00:44:17.540
Geologist and poet John Ruskin
called it the most

00:44:17.540 --> 00:44:19.080
noble cliff in Europe.

00:44:27.610 --> 00:44:30.960
So we're sitting in front of a
classic European mountain, an

00:44:30.960 --> 00:44:34.870
icon in Europe, but it's not
actually made out of European

00:44:34.870 --> 00:44:36.010
rock is it?

00:44:36.010 --> 00:44:38.000
Yeah, it's amazing, right.

00:44:38.000 --> 00:44:41.890
We're sitting on these oceanic
rocks down here that were the

00:44:41.890 --> 00:44:43.610
south margin of Europe.

00:44:43.610 --> 00:44:47.740
And that whole edifice that is
the Matterhorn is, again,

00:44:47.740 --> 00:44:50.430
continental rock that
sits above all of

00:44:50.430 --> 00:44:51.960
this oceanic rock.

00:44:51.960 --> 00:44:54.080
But it's not Europe.

00:44:54.080 --> 00:44:57.350
It's actually a piece of Africa
that's been shoved

00:44:57.350 --> 00:45:02.340
right in over top of us
back towards Europe.

00:45:02.340 --> 00:45:04.180
So it's an African mountain.

00:45:04.180 --> 00:45:05.960
It's an African mountain.

00:45:05.960 --> 00:45:06.300
Yeah.

00:45:06.300 --> 00:45:08.000
No, it's--

00:45:08.000 --> 00:45:12.240
Italy is actually a prong, a
peninsula, that sticks off the

00:45:12.240 --> 00:45:14.540
north margin of Africa.

00:45:14.540 --> 00:45:18.740
And it's that Italian peninsula
that's driven into

00:45:18.740 --> 00:45:23.980
the soft underbelly of Europe
here, and that's the leading

00:45:23.980 --> 00:45:26.700
edge of Africa sticking up
over top of Europe here.

00:45:26.700 --> 00:45:27.660
So that's ironic.

00:45:27.660 --> 00:45:32.320
Again, we're on the border of
Switzerland and Italy, but

00:45:32.320 --> 00:45:34.210
we're on the border of the
European plate and the African

00:45:34.210 --> 00:45:36.090
plate tectonically.

00:45:36.090 --> 00:45:37.070
Yeah, that's right.

00:45:37.070 --> 00:45:37.720
Yeah.

00:45:37.720 --> 00:45:39.885
And how it gets so far
in is amazing.

00:45:45.410 --> 00:45:48.950
Trying to understand tectonics
can make the story of the

00:45:48.950 --> 00:45:51.120
earth seem so random.

00:45:51.120 --> 00:45:54.580
How else can we explain that the
most recognizable mountain

00:45:54.580 --> 00:45:58.640
in Europe happens
to be African.

00:45:58.640 --> 00:46:02.650
But in tectonics, geologists
see a sense of order and

00:46:02.650 --> 00:46:03.910
predictability.

00:46:03.910 --> 00:46:07.640
They know that the Earth
is never truly settled.

00:46:07.640 --> 00:46:10.670
Even if mountains are only
moving a few millimeters a

00:46:10.670 --> 00:46:12.895
year, they are still
in motion.

00:46:17.890 --> 00:46:22.100
Before a tunnel, of course,
there was a road over the top.

00:46:22.100 --> 00:46:26.000
And before that, there
were tracks.

00:46:26.000 --> 00:46:29.740
The Saint Bernard Tunnel cuts
through almost 6 kilometers of

00:46:29.740 --> 00:46:32.265
the base of a mountain.

00:46:32.265 --> 00:46:35.670
As we're going south into
Italy, as we cross the

00:46:35.670 --> 00:46:39.260
international border, it's
very close to the plate

00:46:39.260 --> 00:46:41.040
boundary too, isn't it?

00:46:41.040 --> 00:46:41.530
Yeah.

00:46:41.530 --> 00:46:46.130
The border between Switzerland
and Italy essentially is just

00:46:46.130 --> 00:46:49.875
about that boundary between the
African rocks that have

00:46:49.875 --> 00:46:52.805
been pushed north over
the European plate.

00:46:52.805 --> 00:46:54.770
So the tunnel itself
was cut right

00:46:54.770 --> 00:46:56.795
through the plate margin.

00:46:56.795 --> 00:46:57.685
Yeah.

00:46:57.685 --> 00:47:03.050
The Alps still are a very
seismically active region.

00:47:03.050 --> 00:47:06.520
Yeah, which is another problem
they had to content with in

00:47:06.520 --> 00:47:08.120
building a tunnel, major
earthquakes.

00:47:11.487 --> 00:47:13.800
Maybe we shouldn't talk
about that right now.

00:47:13.800 --> 00:47:15.050
Alright.

00:47:19.680 --> 00:47:22.100
Before these tunnels made
travel through the Alps

00:47:22.100 --> 00:47:26.100
possible, cultures developed
apart from one another, in

00:47:26.100 --> 00:47:28.630
isolated mountain valleys.

00:47:28.630 --> 00:47:31.260
That's why there are Swiss
on one side, and

00:47:31.260 --> 00:47:32.510
Italians on the other.

00:47:40.010 --> 00:47:43.710
I'm always fascinated by the
extent to which mountains have

00:47:43.710 --> 00:47:45.694
shaped human history.

00:47:45.694 --> 00:47:46.980
It's amazing, right?

00:47:46.980 --> 00:47:51.670
Different rocks, different
fauna.

00:47:51.670 --> 00:47:52.990
Feels like Africa.

00:47:52.990 --> 00:47:55.751
Smells like Africa.

00:47:55.751 --> 00:47:58.120
There should be a big marker up
somewhere, shouldn't there,

00:47:58.120 --> 00:48:00.605
saying you have crossed
from Europe to Africa.

00:48:09.551 --> 00:48:13.760
It's amazingly warm compared to
the north side of the grand

00:48:13.760 --> 00:48:15.190
Saint Bernard Tunnel.

00:48:15.190 --> 00:48:15.270
Yeah.

00:48:15.270 --> 00:48:17.455
There's warm air coming
up from the Med.

00:48:17.455 --> 00:48:19.450
It has a noticeable effect
on the climate.

00:48:19.450 --> 00:48:21.015
You see the snow line
is much higher,

00:48:21.015 --> 00:48:22.650
there's much less snow--

00:48:22.650 --> 00:48:23.720
Than on the Swiss side.

00:48:23.720 --> 00:48:24.380
Yeah.

00:48:24.380 --> 00:48:26.740
So there are fewer glaciers
on the Italian side.

00:48:26.740 --> 00:48:29.270
They're higher and smaller.

00:48:29.270 --> 00:48:32.970
You can still see all the rocks
actually descending into

00:48:32.970 --> 00:48:34.740
the earth away to the south.

00:48:34.740 --> 00:48:37.340
Yeah, this is all still African
crust, isn't it, but

00:48:37.340 --> 00:48:39.190
it's been pushed up.

00:48:39.190 --> 00:48:42.900
So this is all still stacked up
into the Alps, pushing up

00:48:42.900 --> 00:48:45.000
and over European crust.

00:48:45.000 --> 00:48:47.540
Now, we have to go back through
the tunnel to see that

00:48:47.540 --> 00:48:49.500
old European crust thrust up.

00:48:49.500 --> 00:48:49.990
Yeah.

00:48:49.990 --> 00:48:51.460
We should do that.

00:48:51.460 --> 00:48:53.650
Head back north, yeah.

00:48:53.650 --> 00:48:58.080
Just as soon as I've finished
my coffee and grappa.

00:48:58.080 --> 00:48:58.540
Cheers.

00:48:58.540 --> 00:49:00.480
Mm.

00:49:00.480 --> 00:49:04.040
When Nick was still in the UK on
this journey, he said that

00:49:04.040 --> 00:49:06.610
a continent is like a mosaic.

00:49:06.610 --> 00:49:10.130
And mosaic might still be the
best term to describe the

00:49:10.130 --> 00:49:13.380
composition of a continent.

00:49:13.380 --> 00:49:16.950
From the majesty of the Alps
to the geologic rippling of

00:49:16.950 --> 00:49:22.760
the UK to the volcanism of
Iceland, it's a great story.

00:49:22.760 --> 00:49:24.914
The thing is, the story
isn't finished.

00:49:24.914 --> 00:49:26.810
It never will be.

00:49:26.810 --> 00:49:30.470
200 million years ago, Europe
didn't look like this.

00:49:30.470 --> 00:49:32.915
And in another 200 million
years, these

00:49:32.915 --> 00:49:35.430
vistas will be gone.

00:49:35.430 --> 00:49:39.520
Tectonic plates, by their very
nature, have to keep moving.

00:49:39.520 --> 00:49:42.282
We just live on them at the
earth's discretion.

00:50:18.840 --> 00:50:22.620
You know, when you look at a
field like genetics, been

00:50:22.620 --> 00:50:26.160
explosive developments over the
last few decades, geology

00:50:26.160 --> 00:50:30.050
is something we tend to think
hasn't changed that much.

00:50:30.050 --> 00:50:33.710
What have been some of the big
shifts that you've seen?

00:50:33.710 --> 00:50:36.950
I think in the broader
understanding of Earth as it

00:50:36.950 --> 00:50:40.540
behaves today, this theory of
plate tectonics, which was a

00:50:40.540 --> 00:50:44.135
real revolution when it came in
the '60s because there was

00:50:44.135 --> 00:50:48.370
always data about how the Earth
works and there's a lot

00:50:48.370 --> 00:50:49.415
of information out
there, but it had

00:50:49.415 --> 00:50:50.590
never been pulled together.

00:50:50.590 --> 00:50:53.800
I mean, it like a paradigm,
something that comes along and

00:50:53.800 --> 00:50:56.435
just sweeps up all the
information before it.

00:50:56.435 --> 00:51:00.080
There has also been the
dating of things.

00:51:00.080 --> 00:51:02.670
We can now much more
precisely date

00:51:02.670 --> 00:51:03.990
episodes in Earth history.

00:51:03.990 --> 00:51:06.580
So you've got this powerful
model, plate tectonics, which

00:51:06.580 --> 00:51:09.060
says how the Earth evolved
and you've got a

00:51:09.060 --> 00:51:11.020
means of dating it.

00:51:11.020 --> 00:51:12.960
And then the other thing
that's happened is pure

00:51:12.960 --> 00:51:14.550
technology.

00:51:14.550 --> 00:51:17.470
We've now got instruments where
we can see deep below

00:51:17.470 --> 00:51:19.830
the Earth floor, the drilling
techniques are better.

00:51:19.830 --> 00:51:24.840
So there's been this profound
revolution in understanding

00:51:24.840 --> 00:51:27.275
the deep interior of the Earth,
the way in which the

00:51:27.275 --> 00:51:30.880
Earth's surface reflects that,
and then the changes in the

00:51:30.880 --> 00:51:33.260
continents through time.

00:51:33.260 --> 00:51:35.630
Well, I mean it's the
guiding principle

00:51:35.630 --> 00:51:38.670
in a geologic series.

00:51:38.670 --> 00:51:40.140
Plate tectonics drives.

00:51:40.140 --> 00:51:42.920
It's like evolution is to
biology then, a really

00:51:42.920 --> 00:51:45.200
fundamental concept.

00:51:45.200 --> 00:51:48.230
I would say a plate tectonic
revolution in the late '60s

00:51:48.230 --> 00:51:51.080
was comparable to Darwin's
idea of evolution.

00:51:51.080 --> 00:51:54.090
It's almost like a grand
composite theory, which you

00:51:54.090 --> 00:51:56.320
can always hang anything on.

00:51:56.320 --> 00:52:01.200
And what I'm really interested
in is the synthesis that is

00:52:01.200 --> 00:52:03.360
now coming out between
biology and geology.

00:52:03.360 --> 00:52:08.070
Because it turns out that, not
unexpectedly, Earth's life

00:52:08.070 --> 00:52:11.870
history relates very well to the
biologic history because

00:52:11.870 --> 00:52:14.140
you're changing the geography,
you're changing where oceans

00:52:14.140 --> 00:52:16.420
are, oceans are coming and
going, land masses are

00:52:16.420 --> 00:52:19.420
migrating into high
and low latitude.

00:52:19.420 --> 00:52:23.200
So it's not a big surprise that
the biological record

00:52:23.200 --> 00:52:25.120
tracks that as well.

00:52:25.120 --> 00:52:31.170
Was Toronto, Canada's Tuzo
Wilson as big a figure in that

00:52:31.170 --> 00:52:34.020
whole kind of revolution
as we tend to say?

00:52:34.020 --> 00:52:35.320
Absolutely, yes.

00:52:35.320 --> 00:52:38.760
There was a lot of diverse
information that people had

00:52:38.760 --> 00:52:42.300
assembled over basically
the last 100 years.

00:52:42.300 --> 00:52:44.260
And there had always been this
idea that the continents have

00:52:44.260 --> 00:52:46.610
been together, I mean, it's a
very old idea actually, oh

00:52:46.610 --> 00:52:50.830
it's 17th century, and the
evidence for it is much better

00:52:50.830 --> 00:52:53.710
in the southern hemisphere,
though the matches between

00:52:53.710 --> 00:52:58.800
South America, Africa, Australia
are actually better,

00:52:58.800 --> 00:53:00.210
but nobody really believed it.

00:53:00.210 --> 00:53:03.300
And then people started going
across the oceans in boats,

00:53:03.300 --> 00:53:05.450
they started looking at the
character of the ocean floor

00:53:05.450 --> 00:53:08.430
and that's where the secret was
because you saw evidence

00:53:08.430 --> 00:53:12.605
of volcanoes along the mid-ocean
ridges, and evidence

00:53:12.605 --> 00:53:14.620
that the oceans were widening.

00:53:14.620 --> 00:53:17.280
And really, it was the better
understanding of the ocean

00:53:17.280 --> 00:53:19.130
floors and the life history
of oceans--

00:53:19.130 --> 00:53:21.240
Well, I think that's a dramatic
thing is suddenly

00:53:21.240 --> 00:53:23.570
you've got these fossil
records high up on

00:53:23.570 --> 00:53:25.170
mountains and, yeah.

00:53:25.170 --> 00:53:27.990
And the interesting thing is,
the geology of the continents

00:53:27.990 --> 00:53:29.135
is complicated.

00:53:29.135 --> 00:53:31.290
And geologists have been
wandering around over the

00:53:31.290 --> 00:53:34.840
continents with all this detail,
and frankly not making

00:53:34.840 --> 00:53:35.930
a lot of sense of it.

00:53:35.930 --> 00:53:40.650
And then a few geophysicists
went across the oceans and

00:53:40.650 --> 00:53:45.920
suddenly all that detail was
resolved into this grand cycle

00:53:45.920 --> 00:53:48.565
of the supercontinent cycle.

00:53:48.565 --> 00:53:50.230
It's like chapters.

00:53:50.230 --> 00:53:52.620
You get these big
supercontinents, they're

00:53:52.620 --> 00:53:54.740
unstable, they break up.

00:53:54.740 --> 00:53:56.150
And we're in a phase
now where the

00:53:56.150 --> 00:53:57.860
continents are moving apart.

00:53:57.860 --> 00:54:01.890
But, they're moving apart
to the next meeting.

00:54:01.890 --> 00:54:02.620
Right.

00:54:02.620 --> 00:54:04.710
So you can look into the future,
you can predict the

00:54:04.710 --> 00:54:05.850
future quite easily.

00:54:05.850 --> 00:54:08.480
There's an awful lot of
pressure these days on

00:54:08.480 --> 00:54:10.280
scientists to be relevant.

00:54:10.280 --> 00:54:12.900
What's the use of supporting
this research if it doesn't

00:54:12.900 --> 00:54:14.660
pay off in some way.

00:54:14.660 --> 00:54:17.740
How do you say that to someone
in the area of geology, what's

00:54:17.740 --> 00:54:20.230
the relevance of geology?

00:54:20.230 --> 00:54:22.610
Well, I think it's relevant on
a number of different levels.

00:54:22.610 --> 00:54:24.530
The obvious one is resources.

00:54:24.530 --> 00:54:28.550
We're running out of resources
as humans and we've got to

00:54:28.550 --> 00:54:32.040
explore deeper in the Earth,
places where we haven't been

00:54:32.040 --> 00:54:37.180
before, and might end up using
robots to mine deep down in

00:54:37.180 --> 00:54:38.090
the Earth's crust.

00:54:38.090 --> 00:54:41.130
So there's always that
need for resources.

00:54:41.130 --> 00:54:44.110
There's also a need to
understand where we came from.

00:54:44.110 --> 00:54:47.120
That's highly relevant, that's
science, to understand the

00:54:47.120 --> 00:54:50.030
history of the planet and
our place in it better.

00:54:50.030 --> 00:54:52.590
And then there's also a huge
drive at the moment in terms

00:54:52.590 --> 00:54:56.390
of relevance, using geological
principles to better

00:54:56.390 --> 00:54:59.420
understand the environment so
we can look at impacts of

00:54:59.420 --> 00:55:04.990
cities, waste disposal,
finding resources.

00:55:04.990 --> 00:55:10.110
But also, I think, emerging
now more than ever is a

00:55:10.110 --> 00:55:14.330
greater risks to human
populations posed by geologic

00:55:14.330 --> 00:55:16.810
processes, earthquakes,
volcanic eruptions.

00:55:16.810 --> 00:55:20.450
They've always been there, but
now humans are concentrated

00:55:20.450 --> 00:55:23.150
more and more in these
bigger urban areas.

00:55:23.150 --> 00:55:26.780
So we need to understand those
natural geologic phenomena

00:55:26.780 --> 00:55:28.340
much better.

00:55:28.340 --> 00:55:31.610
So I think resources, and
security, and safety are the

00:55:31.610 --> 00:55:32.570
two big pushes.

00:55:32.570 --> 00:55:36.990
Well, of course, in the area
I'm in one of our biggest

00:55:36.990 --> 00:55:42.130
battles is about mining because
mining is inherently

00:55:42.130 --> 00:55:43.710
unsustainable.

00:55:43.710 --> 00:55:46.380
And, of course, given geological
time, the Earth can

00:55:46.380 --> 00:55:49.260
absorb and deal with a lot of
things, but in the short run,

00:55:49.260 --> 00:55:51.980
the way we're mining is always
very problematic.

00:55:51.980 --> 00:55:55.430
So I'm glad that geology itself
as a discipline deals

00:55:55.430 --> 00:55:58.740
with that because it's the
opposite side of exploiting

00:55:58.740 --> 00:55:59.290
the resource.

00:55:59.290 --> 00:55:59.550
Yeah.

00:55:59.550 --> 00:56:01.840
I think we've got to find the
resources and that's where new

00:56:01.840 --> 00:56:04.360
techniques, new instruments
come in, because they're

00:56:04.360 --> 00:56:05.410
hidden from view.

00:56:05.410 --> 00:56:08.890
And there is a company that's
now trying to mine, at least

00:56:08.890 --> 00:56:11.190
drill down, to the mantle.

00:56:11.190 --> 00:56:14.390
So just imagine if we can tap
into the mantle and the lower

00:56:14.390 --> 00:56:17.630
crust, I wouldn't say we'd solve
our resource problems,

00:56:17.630 --> 00:56:19.120
but we're getting there.

00:56:19.120 --> 00:56:21.320
And then the other side of the
coin is we've got to get that

00:56:21.320 --> 00:56:22.570
stuff out in a more

00:56:22.570 --> 00:56:24.880
environmentally responsible manner.

00:56:24.880 --> 00:56:27.410
And as a geologist, I'll be the
first to admit we haven't

00:56:27.410 --> 00:56:30.770
done very well in the past,
but we're getting there.

00:56:30.770 --> 00:56:35.150
There's an awful lot of really
good science now that's been

00:56:35.150 --> 00:56:38.530
directed at finding resources
and using

00:56:38.530 --> 00:56:39.810
them much more sensibly.

00:56:39.810 --> 00:56:42.900
So I think we're turning
the corner.

00:56:42.900 --> 00:56:45.370
Well, of course, as someone
involved in environmental

00:56:45.370 --> 00:56:48.380
issues and the worry about
climate change, the thing I

00:56:48.380 --> 00:56:50.970
see that you've got down
there is energy.

00:56:50.970 --> 00:56:53.720
I mean, if there are ways that
geologists can show us to get

00:56:53.720 --> 00:56:56.890
down there, hot rocks and all
that, there's the potential

00:56:56.890 --> 00:56:58.880
for limitless energy
basically.

00:56:58.880 --> 00:56:59.820
I agree.

00:56:59.820 --> 00:57:03.950
I think that's very exciting
and it's a technological

00:57:03.950 --> 00:57:05.510
milestone that we've
got to overcome.

00:57:05.510 --> 00:57:07.830
And like everything else, it's
just a case of money.

00:57:07.830 --> 00:57:10.370
If somebody would direct a large
enough amount of money

00:57:10.370 --> 00:57:14.000
to drilling down to 10
kilometers and so on, you

00:57:14.000 --> 00:57:16.930
could solve the world's
energy problem.

00:57:16.930 --> 00:57:19.980
And it's done locally in places
like Iceland, Kenya.

00:57:19.980 --> 00:57:21.060
There's actually quite a bit--

00:57:21.060 --> 00:57:23.290
You got to get close enough to
the surface to make it--

00:57:23.290 --> 00:57:25.620
Yeah, or deep enough.

00:57:25.620 --> 00:57:29.280
So, a student watches you,
gets all excited, goes to

00:57:29.280 --> 00:57:32.760
university, gets a degree
in geology, then what?

00:57:32.760 --> 00:57:36.420
Well, the resource industry is
huge and we have this issue at

00:57:36.420 --> 00:57:41.130
the moment because geology
has a bad reputation for

00:57:41.130 --> 00:57:43.450
environmentalists that we're
not producing enough

00:57:43.450 --> 00:57:47.650
geologists, so there's a ready
job for anybody that has a

00:57:47.650 --> 00:57:49.290
degree in geology.

00:57:49.290 --> 00:57:51.690
And then the environmental side,
the other side of the

00:57:51.690 --> 00:57:56.856
coin is that large cities
dispose of wastes, think of

00:57:56.856 --> 00:58:00.140
all the ground water that's
needed, what do we do with

00:58:00.140 --> 00:58:01.280
waste water.

00:58:01.280 --> 00:58:05.210
So there's now a huge demand
for geoscience, a sort of

00:58:05.210 --> 00:58:08.950
broader aspect of geology, in
the environmental industry

00:58:08.950 --> 00:58:10.570
working with biologists,
working with

00:58:10.570 --> 00:58:11.950
physicists and chemists.

00:58:11.950 --> 00:58:13.680
So geology has changed.

00:58:13.680 --> 00:58:17.200
It's not just about rocks and
minerals, but it's about

00:58:17.200 --> 00:58:21.440
trying to understand the deeper
structure of the Earth,

00:58:21.440 --> 00:58:24.970
below cities, aggregate
extraction, we need resources

00:58:24.970 --> 00:58:28.380
in cities on so on, and
waste disposal.

00:58:28.380 --> 00:58:30.670
So there's lots of career
opportunities.

00:58:30.670 --> 00:58:31.970
And then, there's, of
course, research.

00:58:31.970 --> 00:58:34.270
You can always go to a
university and do another

00:58:34.270 --> 00:58:38.660
degree and try and understand
the planet.

00:58:38.660 --> 00:58:40.120
It's the only opportunity
you have.

00:58:40.120 --> 00:58:44.230
You're a global citizen
nowadays, so what better

00:58:44.230 --> 00:58:47.210
career could there be than
trying to understand how our

00:58:47.210 --> 00:58:49.990
planet works and has worked.

00:58:49.990 --> 00:58:54.480
Not many scientists in your
position have devoted the

00:58:54.480 --> 00:58:58.390
amount of time that you have
in the media to get the

00:58:58.390 --> 00:59:02.030
information you know out
to a broader public.

00:59:02.030 --> 00:59:04.480
What do you feel you've learned
from that experience?

00:59:04.480 --> 00:59:07.410
Oh, I learned a lot myself,
personally.

00:59:07.410 --> 00:59:09.820
I got to go to a lot of
interesting places, which I

00:59:09.820 --> 00:59:13.220
wouldn't normally have done,
so my understanding of this

00:59:13.220 --> 00:59:17.705
fantastic place that we call
home is much more extensive

00:59:17.705 --> 00:59:18.400
than it was.

00:59:18.400 --> 00:59:22.660
But also, I think more
fundamentally, I learned how

00:59:22.660 --> 00:59:26.000
to teach and communicate and
I see this whole four-year

00:59:26.000 --> 00:59:30.360
exercise as basically a
lesson in teaching.

00:59:30.360 --> 00:59:32.550
You're trying to get the message
across to a much

00:59:32.550 --> 00:59:34.180
bigger audience.

00:59:34.180 --> 00:59:39.680
And in everyday teaching in
the university, I use this

00:59:39.680 --> 00:59:43.600
series and the various travels
that we had, the people that

00:59:43.600 --> 00:59:49.360
we met, as a vehicle to get
over the hard science.

00:59:49.360 --> 00:59:52.115
If I go into a lecture room and
just present hard science,

00:59:52.115 --> 00:59:56.320
I've found that turns people
off quicker than anything.

00:59:56.320 --> 00:59:59.200
Geology is about rocks and
minerals, right, and that

00:59:59.200 --> 01:00:01.920
image puts a lot
of people off.

01:00:01.920 --> 01:00:04.570
What I do now, is I take
them literally

01:00:04.570 --> 01:00:06.710
on a planetary journey.

01:00:06.710 --> 01:00:10.240
We went to 23 different
countries, met an awful lot of

01:00:10.240 --> 01:00:14.070
interesting people, living in
some really dangerous places.

01:00:14.070 --> 01:00:19.430
And so I use that journey to
hang the science on, and I

01:00:19.430 --> 01:00:21.760
say, well, this week we're going
to go to Japan, look at

01:00:21.760 --> 01:00:23.140
the tectonic setting of Japan.

01:00:23.140 --> 01:00:25.450
I can see light bulbs going off
in the audience because

01:00:25.450 --> 01:00:28.840
you've immediately made that
connection, Japan.

01:00:28.840 --> 01:00:32.060
And you tell them something
about the people living there,

01:00:32.060 --> 01:00:35.620
the culture, and then very
gently you get the science in,

01:00:35.620 --> 01:00:40.020
you get the rocks and minerals
in, and they love it.

01:00:40.020 --> 01:00:41.820
If you went at it the other
way around, if you started

01:00:41.820 --> 01:00:44.000
with the rocks and minerals,
you've put the audience off

01:00:44.000 --> 01:00:47.020
and I think that's been the
problem with a lot of geology

01:00:47.020 --> 01:00:49.850
teaching in high schools
and so on.

01:00:49.850 --> 01:00:55.650
So I see this series as really
a way to almost reposition my

01:00:55.650 --> 01:01:00.080
science out there in the broader
educational realm.

01:01:00.080 --> 01:01:02.150
So, you know, it's interesting,
this is the 50th

01:01:02.150 --> 01:01:03.300
anniversary of The
Nature of Things.

01:01:03.300 --> 01:01:04.700
Congratulations.

01:01:04.700 --> 01:01:07.690
Well, I'm not responsible.

01:01:07.690 --> 01:01:12.180
In that time, geology has been
an area, you know I've been

01:01:12.180 --> 01:01:15.690
associated with it for 30-some
odd years and I kept saying, I

01:01:15.690 --> 01:01:16.840
love geology.

01:01:16.840 --> 01:01:21.030
And it was always an idea
we danced around

01:01:21.030 --> 01:01:22.820
because it was rocks.

01:01:22.820 --> 01:01:23.440
Right.

01:01:23.440 --> 01:01:27.460
And what I see, the huge shift
in the geologic journey, both

01:01:27.460 --> 01:01:30.380
the series is computer
animation.

01:01:30.380 --> 01:01:31.170
Yeah.

01:01:31.170 --> 01:01:35.890
You actually are able to speed
up that whole process in a way

01:01:35.890 --> 01:01:38.310
that wasn't possible
in the past.

01:01:38.310 --> 01:01:39.070
That's really been interesting.

01:01:39.070 --> 01:01:39.410
Yeah.

01:01:39.410 --> 01:01:42.350
I think you've put your finger
on something called time.

01:01:42.350 --> 01:01:45.300
I think you don't have to
become a geologist,

01:01:45.300 --> 01:01:47.860
professional geologist, but I
think you need to do a geology

01:01:47.860 --> 01:01:52.210
course to claim to be an
educated person, so I see this

01:01:52.210 --> 01:01:54.480
series going out into
the schools.

01:01:54.480 --> 01:01:56.330
And what you're doing is
changing people's lives

01:01:56.330 --> 01:01:59.720
because they'll never see the
planet in the same way.

01:01:59.720 --> 01:02:02.770
We've got 4 and 1/2 billion
years to deal with.

01:02:02.770 --> 01:02:05.370
And then the Big Bang was
13 and 1/2 billion

01:02:05.370 --> 01:02:07.190
years before that.

01:02:07.190 --> 01:02:09.480
So I think when you're trying to
get your mind around those

01:02:09.480 --> 01:02:14.900
big numbers and the very brief
existence that we've been on

01:02:14.900 --> 01:02:17.840
planet Earth, I think that's
pretty profound stuff.

01:02:17.840 --> 01:02:19.940
That's about as profound
as it gets.