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00:58:49
Iain Stewart, Dean Ah Chee, Mike Archer
4
200 million years ago North and South America were carved from Pangaea, and pushed westwards as separate island continents. The episode explains how subduction has created the longest continual mountain range in the world - the Andes, and how 300 million years ago New York was at the heart of a huge mountain range.[1] Using llama as an example, Iain explains how most of South America's wildlife originated in North America, and only came south when the two island continents of North and South America joined three million years ago.
It's formed by pressures of four kilobar or more.
FOOTSTEPS CRUNCHING
40,000 tonn of silver came out of this mine -
because the haemoglobin,
fertilisation could only occur externally, in water.
Subduction is the key to understanding
But these were also the death throes of the supercontinent itself.
They're living evidence of the final instalment
The eruptions created chasm and rifts
Amphibians were the first vertebrates to emerge onto land.
that extends upward for 13 kilometre.
..and these feisty fella scrap for the right to breed.
So this rock, which is a kind of basalt, started off as hot magma.
Geologists have found evidence of this humungous volcanic outpouring
is the gradual uplift and crumpling of this whole region.
Amphibians were the first vertebrate to emerge onto land.
Meanwhile, on its western flank,
The magma that erupted out is thought to have been brought up
This dense bedrock is known as Manhattan schist.
like a heat blister until it cracks and fractures,
the llama's feet are split into two, they've got two toes.
The eruption created chasms and rifts
The eruptions created chasms and rift
But because they fertilise externally,
that have been percolating through these rocks in this region
HERDER WHOOSHES OK.
and are elongate, strung out in this direction here.
The magma that erupt out is thought to have been brought up
ALLIGATOR GROWLS
..that are flatten in this direction
what the conquistadors plunder here
Helping him treat his injure means I can get up close and personal
it kind of gets snag and jarred.
Since it's been uplift, the lake has become surrounded by mountains
When the Andes started to rise, they divert rivers to the north,
to an animal whose ancestors roam the Americas
Until now, electric cars have been hamper
Northern mammals in particular invade the south.
Even the animals' blood is sacred. It's sprinkle around doorways
required an evolutionary innovation that would be inherit
nestle together in the heart of Pangaea.
until they just ditch their cargo, stuffing them into veins like this.
The Mid-Atlantic Ridge marks where Pangaea fracture,
The newly evolve reptiles did things differently.
but if you were squeeze by four kilobars
One ecosystem above all others owe its existence to the Andes,
The New World driven inexorably away from the old.
These animals are just magnificently adapted for life at altitude.
fertilisation could only occur externally, in water.
ironically now long extinct in the north.
Where the crust is thin, you can see the brine underneath.
more upright and you can have this really fast gait.
but surprisingly it's about the same size as an alligator egg.
these continental landmasses move gradually further apart.
The newly evolved reptiles did things differently.
Meanwhile, on its western flanks,
The Pangaean deserts were essentially
'that perfectly equipped them for Pangaea's desert world...
but they're entering a world where tunnels regularly give way
in places thousands of miles apart
Every step needs to be taken very carefully.
and those advances would lead eventually to the evolution of us.
even one like this in the relatively inaccessible Andes,
certainly in the style of copulation.
to a height of nearly 4,000 metres.
These hexagons are the flat-top surfaces
were finally joined again.
Before any building goes up high, you've got to dig down deep.
..that spread across almost all of what is today the Americas,
It's this - what we call the ankle joint, it's the crural-tarsal joint,
spewing superheated water.
so by the time the eggs were laid, they had hard, impermeable shells.
The evidence for this cataclysmic event is right under the nose
with the ancient reptilian fossils.
in an ancient animal with a fearsome reputation.
but without its tarnished history.
an impenetrable barrier to the amphibians.
Since that momentous joining,
with intoxicating coca leaves.
of unsuspecting commuters, driving in and out of New York every day.
and explosives are unregulated
Since Inca times, llamas have been at the heart of Andean life.
to create two new tectonic plates.
Few animals are better suited to the mountainous terrain of the Andes
I don't, no. It says, "Alcohol potable" so drinkable alcohol.
is revealed in the Bolivian town of Potosi.
'A molten fluid that must have cooled rapidly.'
even one like this in the relatively inaccessible Andes,
ironically now long extinct in the north.
because alligators share an anatomical connection
that shaped an equally turbulent human history.
But in the heart of this arid world, one type of animal did flourish.