TELEVISION

New History of Life

Series: Great Courses
4.6
(22)
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Episodes
9
Rating
TVPG
Year
2013
Language
English
Publisher
The Great Courses

About

A New History of Life tells this all-embracing story of life on Earth - its origins, extinctions, and evolutions - in 36 lavishly illustrated lectures that assume no background in science. At half an hour per lecture, you cover the entire 4.54-billion-year history of Earth in 18 hours, averaging 70,000 years per second!

Related Subjects

Episodes

1 to 3 of 9

1. The Interconnected Earth

30m

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Begin the story of life on Earth with an overview of the unifying idea that will govern your exploration. Called Earth system science, this approach views Earth as an integrated network comprising the lithosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere, and biosphere. Sample the complex interactions between these realms.

2. The Vast Depths of Earth Time

30m

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How was the great antiquity of Earth discovered? Survey the observations that led to the concept of deep time and, in the process, developed the tools that can read the story in rocks. End with a striking analogy that puts human time into perspective.

3. Fossil Clocks

30m

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Delve into biostratigraphy, the study of fossil sequences in rock strata. The discovery that different layers of rock are characterized by distinctive fossils solved the problem of correlating sedimentary strata from different regions. This led to the geological time scale, initiating a revolution in Earth science.

Extended Details

  • Closed CaptionsEnglish

Artists

Stuart Sutherlandwriter
Stuart Sutherlandactor