Tuesday, March 29, 2016

Australia's First 4 Billion Years

For light watching with lovely glimpses of geology and computer generated scenes of ancient life, I highly recommend Australia's First 4 Billion Years.   It's a NOVA documentary, but you can find it on Youtube, just search the title.

I think the best part is the "driving" into the past at 60 million years per hour: all of humanity occupies only the first 2 seconds of the journey, while it takes over 3 days to get to the beginnings of Earth.  It's a nice way to try to make the vastness of time more immediate and conceivable. 

My favorite parts are the CG scenes of trilobites and their world.  I find trilobites pleasingly symmetric and streamlined:
Order: Ptychopariida
Suborder: Ptychopariina
Superfamily: Ptychoparioidea
Family: Marjumiidae
Species: Modocia typicalis
Source: Trilobites.com

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