An INCREDIBLE Journey to the Earth's Prehistoric Oceans | Earth History Documentary

[Music] foreign the oceans represent nearly 70 percent of our planet however we are far from knowing them we know much more about some planets than our solar system than we do about the great expanses of water on Earth it must be said that the technical means we have at present do not allow us to easily explore the ocean floor however we have learned a lot about the fauna the Flora and the geological constitution of the seafloor in recent years in order to better find our way in this blue immensity men have divided the oceans into five large parts Pacific Atlantic Arctic Southern Indian the depth of the oceans varies according to the territories and the submarine reliefs constituted by Oceanic ridges volcanoes but also planes if the ocean depth does not go deeper than 200 meters or 650 feet in some places the abysses can reach up to 11 000 meters or 36 000 feet deep in the Mariana Trench located in the Pacific 1.386 billion square kilometers that is more than 320 million square miles [Music] this is the amount of water in the oceans two percent comes from glaciers and eternal snows and all this that's without counting the lakes ponds marshes Rivers soil moisture or water in the atmosphere water is one of the most important elements on our planet but our planet has not always looked like it does today far from it if we walk on a planetary scale and see the world ocean as a big hole a single unit then you should know that 50 to 80 percent of our world species are found there it also generates a large part of the ecosystem Services of our planet that is to say that more than half of the ecological functions air oxygenation carbon sequestration nutrient recycling biomass Constitution necessary to life on Earth come from the oceans this is undoubtedly a good reason to preserve it and to take great care of this invaluable resource but it is also a very good reason to try to know more about it and especially about its history that's what I invite you to discover in this video our history and his are closely linked dear traveler welcome today we are going on a long Expedition into the past to explore the seabed before our era what might the Aquatic animals that roam the Earth's waters millions of years before us have looked like do you have any idea what the world's oceans looked like in prehistoric times in your opinion is it so different from what we know or imagine today to find out make yourself comfortable remember to like the video and subscribe to the channel so you don't miss anything our Epic Adventure Starts Now [Music] [Applause] [Music] three billion billion tons of water this is probably what earned the Earth the nickname of Blue Planet however it has not always had such an abundance of water a few billion years ago it was still only rock if we are not yet completely sure and certain of the anniversary of the birth of the ocean we know since 1999 thanks to the discovery of a Zircon that water was already present in quantity 4.5 billion years ago indeed the crystallization of this mineral necessarily requires the element water in the liquid state however this Zircon would celebrate its 4.4 billion candles in addition to its impressive age this Zircon becomes the indisputable proof that water was indeed present during this period on the other hand going back a little further and finding irrefutable proof of when the first ocean the Primitive ocean was formed is still difficult to find what caused the ocean to form is also still a matter of debate among the big names in science there are so to speak two teams who camps two hypotheses which are both perfectly plausible this is why the debate is still open today even if certain elements of study and research will undoubtedly shed light on this mystery in the near future the first hypothesis evokes a brutal volcanic degassing and puts forward the fact that the Earth already contained a certain quantity of water buried in its end rails the Earth's water was integrated into the magma of our deep Earth Slayers meteorites when they collided with the Earth also brought this essential element for Life water the Earth in the first Millennia is very different from what we know today neither water nor even oxygen are present it is only rock a huge Rock in the middle of the universe without life it is constantly bombarded from all sides paradoxically it is these collisions and these multiple impacts that have triggered certain events at the beginning the planetoids which Rush on the earth and bombard it unceasingly will cause a heating and the fusion of The Rock after several thousands of years and several combinations of events the Earth will begin to cool on the surface it is still very hot and under high pressure but it is no longer incandescent if the Earth is a real molten rock it is also riddled with volcanoes as you've seen our planet's original crust has been repeatedly bombarded by meteorites and that eventually led to consequences Awakening volcanoes and churning geysers imagine all that pressure and heat being released all at once all over the Earth the steam that is released is then colossal and forms gargantuan clouds when the earth finally started to cool down all the parameters were there to let these clouds shed their water a deluge of water day and night night and day for several million years torrential rains fall on the Earth oceans lakes rivers finally appear the planet reveals a new face but for some scientists and geochemists this Theory does not hold water at least not on all points and they want to prove it the Moon yes you may not know it but according to scientists our satellite is actually a small fragment of our planet the impact of a protoplanet known as Thea against the proto-earth would have created a ring of debris that eventually gathered into a single natural satellite the Moon now if this hypothesis is true it also means that if water had been naturally present on Earth it would have had to be vaporized and incorporated into the debris Cloud that formed the Moon despite the years we would find a presence of this water on the moon but this is not the case it is only a dry Rock without any drop of water neither on the surface nor in the Rock in any form whatsoever if this hypothesis is verified by astronomical and physical research it would mean that water would not have sprung up only from the deaths but would have been brought mostly by the sky thanks to meteorites comets and asteroids during an event known as the Great Lake bombardment most of them contained ice at least 10 percent which would explain the arrival of water on Earth the common denominator of these two hypotheses Remains the role of volcanic eruptions in geysers on the formation of clouds the collisions and the pressure inside the rock are such that the planet will leave cracks in order to evacuate the internal heat that it is stored volcanic eruptions and geysers then begin their ballet in turn they launched themselves into this massive bubbling effervescence clouds of gas and water vapor come out of the earth everywhere the planet seems ready to implode the water thanks to the runoff is washing away the Rock and loading itself with salt the oceans took about 150 million years to form they were then heavily loaded with iron and the color green predominated water is abundant and allows the cooling of the planet and especially of the lava the granitic rocks float on the Earth's mantle which will lead to plate tectonics and continental drift when we say that water is necessary for life we don't mean it so well it is at the origin of many other phenomena including plate tectonics [Music] about 360 million years ago the distribution of land and sea was quite different from what we know today all this took place long before the creation of Pangea at this time of the Cambrian during the first phase of the Paleozoic the lapitus ocean separates North America from South America and Africa which was welded together the whole called gondwana the reik ocean separates the African Coast from the Baltic continent other oceans such as the panthelosa and the Paleo tethus cover a very large area that separates North China and Siberia over millions of years the continents have moved apart the oceans have expanded and opened on others the land broke away and microcontinents were born this is the case in the devonian of avalonia which includes Canada England Wales France and Denmark in the Carboniferous North China shrank and became isolated from the other continents and microcontinents during the Permian new movements started to bring the lands closer together to form Pangea in the Triassic the fetus ocean is cut it begins an opening that will lead to the Atlantic Ocean by dislocating the Pangea plate subductions when one plate slides under another and origenis these movements of plates that lead to the formation of mountains continue to shape the planet and give it a new face over time ocean ridge activity keeps sea levels High shallow Seas cover some continents other phenomena cause Basalt flows continents break off one by one the land and water seem to be in perpetual motion each of these movements will lead the continents a little more adrift to form the world as we know it today the paleozoicion and especially the first period of the Paleozoic the Cambrian marks a real turning point for life on Earth until then unicellular organisms were the only ones to populate our planet none of them has a particular cell that would allow for example to produce internal organs they are soft-bodied protozoic beings they feed via the cell membrane which is their own body the Cambrian marks an extraordinary and unprecedented change the birth of multicellular organisms in addition to the appearance of these new living beings the Cambrian is also synonymous with the explosion of Life which proliferated during this period in summary what you should remember about the Cambrian era is that life is teeming and diversifying all over the world animals are still largely soft-bodied organisms but their differentiated cells allow them to adapt to their environment and evolve specific internal and external organs appear eyes legs antenna mouth system digestive system nervous system a food chain is also set up and thus favors the development of life in the ocean [Music] [Music] the Cambrian is a pivotal period a key element in our history the Cambrian era you will have understood makes our planet take a new turn the Cambrian marks the beginning of the primary era but also and especially an explosion of underwater life organisms develop they multiply they evolve and adapt to their environment and to a new way of life some of them will be equipped with a skeleton others with shells or carapaces for these animals it is a new way of approaching the environment and of fighting for their survival but for us humans it also means that we will be able to find traces of their life on Earth much later this was not the case before that is why it is still so difficult to determine the extent of underwater life in the pre-cambrian [Music] but 540 million years ago a new form of life developed underwater they can finally leave Shell Impressions or traces of their skeletons elements that will fossilize over time and become the first Witnesses of underwater history to discover this history and to meet your first living Cambrian organisms I will take you to Canada there a 525 million year old rock has offered its most beautiful prehistoric Treasures when we talk about prehistoric animals we more easily evoke the Jurassic the cinema helping or the Cretaceous however many other animals just as fantastic and important have marked the history of the Earth let's go now to Canada we are in the Rocky Mountains of Yoho national park on the western slope of Mount Stephen in Canada it was here in 1909 that Charles Doolittle Walcott a British paleontologist made an absolutely incredible discovery there was such a large pool of fossilized marine animals that it was given a name the Burgess sea trough the quantity is important nearly 65 000 fossil specimens in all belonging to 120 different species but the quality is also just as spectacular the majority of the fossils are a bit damaged it is rare to have a whole skeleton perfectly preserved time has done its work and geological and climatic changes have inevitably had an impact on the remains of the past yet in the Burgess fauna time seems to have stood still the footprints are remarkable because the soft parts of the animal in question can also be seen which is very rare the phenomenon is explained by a slow decomposition of the animals the shales in which the fossils were found were not formed gradually but through a series of brutal and intense mudslides the soft parts were isolated from the oxygen in the water which slowed down the decomposition of the bodies fast burial and slow decomposition is the winning combo for preserving fossils over millions of years now that you've learned about these early fossils let's take a trip down memory lane are you ready to go to the Cambrian [Music] on the geologic time scale we are now between 359 to 299 million years old as you can see things look quite different the average global temperature is 25 degrees Celsius or 77 degrees Fahrenheit if this kind of climate seems mild there is no life on the ground look at the continents all is Rock emptiness and Solitude as far as the eye can see this is easily explained at this time in our history the ozone layer is so thin that it does not protect the planet from the sun's ultraviolet rays the slightest hope of life that could have shown up on the surface would have died victim of our solar star the waters are relatively warm and the atmosphere contains a little oxygen and very little CO2 in spite of rather difficult conditions they have nevertheless allowed life to proliferate this is still Impossible on the continent but the ocean is full of all kinds of marine specimens the first phospholiferous animals I.E capable of leaving fossil traces arrived in the ocean who would have thought that the invention of the shell and the carapace would be so significant invertebrates are king and populate most of the warm and shallow Seas the first green algae develop as you can see they are unicellular or multicellular algae they were limited to the shores and lines of the coasts where they formed a short carpet like our modern bryophytes these algae serve as a food base for a large number of species nature set up the first food chains with primary consumers vegetarians and secondary consumers carnivores and predators let's go deep into the warm Waters of the Cambrian to discover these sea beds you can see worms sponges mollusks and echinoderms these major groups of animal classification are still present today but there are groups that did not survive and ended up disappearing these are the ones we will see first let's start with a trilobite the trilobites owe their name to the shape of their body they are made up of a median lobe and two lateral lobes they live near the seabed they are not easy to see in these funds here is a small specimen five centimeters or two inches approximately it is a coda cops for nandini some members of the trilobite group are much smaller only one millimeter other large specimens can reach 70 centimeters or 28 inches this coat of cops for nandini seems quite fragile in this complex and primitive environment it is however perfectly adapted to its environment its eyes are equipped with many facets which enable it to see 360 degrees impressive no this faculty undoubtedly allowed him to facilitate his research to feed himself more easily it could probably have survived despite the mass extinction that occurred at the end of the Permian the last phase of the Paleozoic in the salty Waters of the ocean unfortunately for it it did not Venture into fresh water and therefore did not survive [Music] here is another member of the arthropod group it is the yahoiah tenuous it is very small between 7 and 23 millimeters only so it is difficult to see but if you get a little closer you should be able to meet some they were quite numerous in this part of the ocean they occupied the Sandy and muddy bottoms this small animal has some assets to compensate for its small size notably a cranial shield and 13 teragites the turgites are sclerites I.E polycrystalline plates they Harden thanks to a process called scarification the turgites are sclerites which are located at a particular place of the body of the animal we find them on the back and they enclose its abdomen our specimen of yohaya tenuous has 13 turgites the first 10 as you can see end in the form of a point on the sides the last three form a tube which protects this part of the body its tail is shaped like a paddle to feed itself it uses a small appendices that you see at the level of the skull they look like small bent legs and some kind of fingers at the ends they could thus manage to capture praise feeding only on dead animals here is now the last of the group The canadaspas it is not the least important because it seems to be one of the oldest crustaceans as you can see it moves by walking on the seafloor it is a benthic feeder it uses its appendages to stir up the mud and find food let's look at another group The archaeocyatha the archaeocyatha are the first Reef building metazoans a reef is a chain of living organisms like the coral reefs we know the archaeocyatha are not corals however they should not be confused they are calceria sponges the sponge is made up of a calyx a kind of porous cone nested one inside the other to form an internal and external wall and thus protect the organism living inside some specimens occupy the whole calyx other organisms occupy only the upper part of the calyx there are many species in this group these sponges feed by filtration zooplankton phytoplankton and organic particles in suspension constitute their diet fragile they can only survive under very strict conditions they cannot tolerate any change in temperature salinity salt content and depth this is undoubtedly what led the species to its loss it is probably the first Super predator of our planet the anamola Karis is not very aesthetic and lacks a bit of charm but to feed it is better to be powerful skilled faster find strategist than cute this grain shrimp is about one meter or three feet long animalicaris has two large black eyes that allow it to interact with its environment its sight is not very clear and it probably doesn't perceive the landscape very well from far away but its eyes allow it to flush out its victims its mouth is a real cutthroat it is equipped with sharp bone plates to crush its prey let's go back to the surface and let this animal Aquarius go about its business it perfectly symbolizes the enormous evolutionary leap of living organisms since the Cambrian we are going to leave the Cambrian era to meet the Aquatic animals of the next era the ordovician the ordovician is the second of the sixth geological systems that make up the Paleozoic differentiating the geological layers allows for a better understanding and appreciation of the environment in which we find ourselves until the 1800s the Cambrian preceded the silurian then in 1879 Charles lapworth understood that another phase lay between the two the global ocean and land cooled vast reservoirs of oil and gas appeared there was also a new explosion of underwater biodiversity this is why it was essential to differentiate it from the other two on the geological time scale the ordovician is located between minus 485 to minus 443 million years the baltica and the laurentia will collide towards the end of this period gondwana was close to the pole and largely covered by glaciers at this point in the history of our oceans sea levels were higher than in the Cambrian and temperatures had risen to 30 degrees Celsius or 86 degrees Fahrenheit at the surface of the globe the number of Genera and families of living beings triple or even quadrupled compared to the previous era thank you what also marks the arrival of the ordovician is the appearance of lapitogenathus fluctivicus it belongs to the now extinct family of connadance this species finally resembles a species that we know today the eel what allows to differentiate it they are its head and its teeth for a long time the only fossils found were its teeth from then on it was difficult to imagine the rest of its body from a simple jaw since then we have some elements that have allowed us to define the soft part and thus to estimate that it is similar to a kind of eel although the species has teeth scientists think that it was mainly used as a filter to feed on plankton after studying the body it is unlikely that the animal is classified as a predator other groups which had already appeared in the Cambrian but were still very few in number developed during the ordovician this is the case of the articulated brachiopods cephalopods crinoids ostracons bryozoa graptolites conodons as we have seen previously and of course corals the first ectoprocs appear at the same time they are what we call Moss animals they are sessile and live in a fixed way on a rocky element for example the body of an ectoproct gathers a very large number of small animals called zoids this is called a colony each soid lives in a small Lodge made of limestone it is these lodges connected to each other that form the skeleton of the colony the colonies can take different forms similar to corals to Moss or even to lace the corals were isolated until now they will start to develop more widely here you can see the first coral reefs in the ocean as you can imagine these reefs are home to life you can find the first bivalves near these primitive corals if the bivalve family already existed in the Cambrian it evolved and developed largely in the ordovician the shell of a bivalve is composed of calcium carbonate and includes two parts generally similar shell equivalents which are called valves these are joined along one of their edges by a flexible ligament a strong increase in the diversity of bivalve species is accompanied by the appearance of disadons heterodonts and taxidants among bivalves we can recognize the raphinesquina in a half circle or the more elongated modulopsis other mollusks such as gastropods are developing this class of mollusks is characterized by the torsion of their visceral Mass they have a very wide variety of forms but can be recognized generally by their characteristic Twisted univalve dorsal shell when present they have a foot and a distinct head their foot is flattened in a broad ventral Soul which makes them excellent swimmers their head it comprises eyes and a radula here is stepsoniscus and a little further chipawayla both aquatic snails I would now like to introduce you to another animal with a shell but this one is much larger and known for its hunting prowess [Music] the orthoceras reached disproportionate sizes here is one of the largest orthoceras of its category the Giant orthoceras it Bears its name well if the living quarters of the cephalopod could reach 2 meters or six feet long the shell was around 10 meters or more than 30 feet this orthoceris is rather impressive it was a formidable predator and quickly Rose to the top of the food chain it could be compared to an octopus or a gigantic squid to hunt it used its tentacles to capture its prey then it devoured it with its beak living in deep water this animal had a very bad sight but as for the majority of the living beings in this case other senses compensate this handicap with him it is the sense of smell he smells from far away his future victims which become his dish of the day we did not see much vertebrates until now even if mollusks are very present vertebrates are becoming more and more important in the ocean here is one of them a fish of the genus agnathis this means that it has no Jaws but it has no trouble feeding for all that the mouth of sacabambaspas genvieri was lined with nearly 60 rows of small bony mouth plates that were probably movable to provide an effective sucking action through the expansion and contraction of the oral cavity and pharynx it looks somewhat like a tadpole with its large head flat body and wagging tail a big tadpole of 25 centimeters long that is to say almost 10 inches we have just started this journey and yet events are already getting complicated on land and at sea at the end of this period the planet experience is the first mass extinction and the second largest ever known between 60 and 80 percent of marine species will disappear the cause a drastic decrease in atmospheric CO2 leading to a global cooling indeed one of the factors preventing ice ages in this era is the high concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere which at the time was 8 to 20 times higher than pre-industrial levels it is difficult to establish the exact cause but one plausible hypothesis is that non-vascular plants settle and developed on land during the late ordovician this major modification of the biosphere would have accelerated the process of silicate alteration on the continents this process by fixing very large quantities of carbon dioxide would have led to a decrease in the Earth's temperature and the development of polar caps the consequences continue since the ice sheets increased the Albedo of the earth reflecting more of the sun's Rays thus aggravating the drop in temperature another theory is that a large Continental volcanic activity has caused the salting flows in the cation igneous province this tilting is at the transition between a period where the Continental masses were very dispersed and where a warm climate prevailed and a cold period that begins during the cation and will culminate with a hernancian glaciation caused by the migration of the supercontinent of proto-gondwana to the South Pole these volcanic activities would have released large quantities of CO2 into the atmosphere and would have replaced granitic rocks by basaltic planes the problem the saltic Rocks erode much faster than granitic rocks which means that they store much more atmospheric CO2 soon the level of atmospheric CO2 decreased falling below the levels of pre-volcanic activity however this glaciation caused the sea level to drop by several hundred meters average global surface temperatures drop from 30 degrees Celsius to 10 degrees Celsius or from 86 degrees Fahrenheit to 50 degrees Fahrenheit creatures that had made their homes in the deep ocean would have witnessed the cooling and shrinking of their habitat and would have found themselves without a way out the rate of Extinction of marine animal families in the upper ordovician over about 20 million years is the highest ever recorded in the history of the Earth on the order of 20 families per million years the glaciation lasted between 1 and 35 million years the survivors would have had a hard time recovering in these chemically hostile Waters once the sea level started to rise again the levels of dissolved oxygen in the water decreased which would have increased the absorption of toxic Metals in the oceans this anoxia would have killed many of the survivors of the first wave of Extinction following this Extinction occurs a new geological phase the solurian over millions of years CO2 is gradually re-injected into the Earth's atmosphere warming the planet and ending the Ice Age after this mass extinction life proliferates again in the ocean it proliferates and diversifies coral reefs can be admired especially near the coasts of the panthelosa ocean and those of paleo tethis on shallow sea beds the climate is mild 20 degrees Celsius or 68 degrees Fahrenheit on the thermometer the corals especially the roughy and the tabulate are very happy in the sea the first one has a calceria skeleton a rocky element it was solitary and becomes more and more Colonial hence the constitution of reefs for the second its exoskeleton an external skeleton is made of calcite did you notice the fish that just broke away from us by moving behind the corals it is the pharyngolepis oblongus it belongs to the family of anapsids it measures about 25 centimeters if it has an anal and caudal fins it does not have pectoral fins but bony spines it is undoubtedly a means of protecting itself from the Predators for this fish which feeds on the ground in the Marine funds a little further on you will be able to see another kind of fish that also populated this part of the oceans [Music] these jawless fish are part of the species that lived in salt water but also in the fresh water of rivers do you notice the cranial Shield of this adiolaspus tessellata despite its needle-like shape on a good part of its body it is indeed a fish it has two fins that allow it to move in the water we also find other fish of the same type like the cephalaspus which appreciates the estuaries it is part of the detritophores far from being at the top of the food chain it protects itself from predators thanks to its cranial Shield but this was not its only use indeed his shield had sensory plates along the edge and Center which were used to detect the presence of worms and other burrowing organisms in the mud but during this period it wasn't just jawless fish quite the opposite one of the highlights of the solarian is the appearance of Jaws and vertebrate fish the first to be constituted of this famous jaw which starts from the second branchial Arc are the akanthodians with spiny fins and the placoderms whose front of the body is enclosed in a bony carapace some of these fish had a bony skeleton others rather cartilaginious they are numerous and very Diversified in this branch you can see here characanthus merchasoni but we will fix our attention on this climatius it is a spiny shark rather good swimmer it was also a fine Hunter it feeds mainly on other fishes but does not make the fine mouth in front of a crustacean what is rather surprising about him is precisely his Jaws the lower jaw is equipped with multiple sharp teeth at the slightest sign of wear the teeth fall out to make room for a new perfectly sharpened tooth the upper jaw has no teeth at all another category of creatures marks the solarian they are the Europe darids they already existed in the ordovician but the silurian is their finest hour it is at this period that they are the most numerous and especially the most varied here is one of them an akutaramus this beautiful specimen measures already 2.5 meters that is eight feet it is the largest arthropod known so far in addition to having rather extraordinary Dimensions it had a fast and efficient swimming technique its last pair of legs constituted real paddles while its abdomen undulated to make it gain in speed and Mobility as for feeding it also had some assets to get by in the sea it's chela sarri small appendages located on the skull in the shape of a hook or a claw depending on the species are nestled under its head when it is at rest but in case of hunger IT projects them on its prey these two cephalopods should undoubtedly be wary fragmocaris uristoma and fragmakaris dubian have a pretty shell curved in the shape of a phrygian cap but it will be of no use facing the monster which prowls in these Waters [Music] the armored fish have made their grand entrance these fish have a thick bony armor on their head and thorax the plates of this armor allowed them to protect their vital organs such as eyes brain heart Etc from Attack by predators and perhaps sometimes even fellow fish these fish were not very difficult they frequented reefs Deltas as well as the Open Sea their diets were just as varied some grazed on algae others crushed mollusks others were carnivorous intellignathus primordialis is one of the first placoderms its head and its body were covered with thick plates while its tail carried scales it had Jaws but no teeth and its small eyes were buried in large deep sockets [Music] each new geological phase has its Milestone and a new facet of the Earth this time it is the appearance of mountains in two different places the first originy phenomenon of mountain formation takes place in the lapitus ocean after the collusion of two continents laurencia and avalonia the second also includes laurencia and amorica two oceans close the lapetus and the rake elsewhere they are slides of oceanic plates under neighboring plates that occur several physical reactions follow one after the other making the world evolve the temperature is increased considerably and is approaching 30 degrees Celsius or 86 degrees Fahrenheit on Earth it must be said that with our heads under water we have not seen how much things have changed on the surface of the continents as well vegetation has grown a lot and photosynthesis is working so carbon dioxide levels are falling the vegetation is small for the moment but during the devonian period we find the beginnings of the forest stromat pores tabulate corals and tetrachalaria corals continue to build the reefs they are growing diversifying organizing themselves and can thus welcome and shelter new species brachiopods and other shell specimens are still evolving in devonian waters the armor fish proliferate we can see here a brothriolepis and a little further a Dunkleosteus let us approach first the bathrooms this one seems to be a bathriolepis canadensis to be precise it is a small benthic animal in other words it roams the seabed it prefers fresh water and is part of the detritivores this small marine animal feeds on animal plant and fungal debris in short any organic element in decomposition it measures about 30 centimeters or 10 feet in general that can reach 100 centimeters or 40 inches for the largest species bothriolepis Maxima let's take a closer look at Dunkleosteus which is part of the placoderm family Dunkleosteus was an armored fish the armored fish if they appeared in solorian reign supreme in devonian they became the kings of the oceans and challenged the great europteroids which until then were the most dangerous predators one of the most formidable of these armored fish is the Dunkleosteus this cartilage genius fish is one of the first the genus con dick thighs it has paired fins paired nostrils scales and a Serial chambered heart you see the fins they go in pairs on each side of its body it has quite large eyes and small but sharp teeth it feeds on fish and can live in a group this one must be cloudysellicy elegans despite its size between 60 and 180 centimeters that is to say between 20 and 70 inches it is the favorite prey of the Mastodon of the Seas the Dunkleosteus the fish with radiated fins continue to populate the oceans like this actinopterogenian karolepis others like the fish with fleshy fins have undergone an extraordinary evolution it is the lungfish they are pulmonate fish in addition to Gill breathing these fish have a lung this kind of fish knows very different morphologies here is a lepidosarin paradoxin rather long it has a median fin which surrounds the posterior part of the body it also has pectoral and pelvic fins but they look more like thread-like expressences here is another congener of the same family the neoceratotis for steri it is much more stocky but it is indeed part of the same family another particularity of this fish is its ability to breathe in the open air with as much ease as going down to 30 meters or 100 feet under water it is able for example to crawl in the mud or for certain species of lungfish to create a burrow in the mud to manufacture a cocoon by secreting a mucus which seems assimilated to a living tissue with antimicrobial properties all these extraordinary faculties have undoubtedly helped to survive in spite of the climatic and physical changes that the planet has undergone over the millions of years that followed on the geological time scale we are now between -359 and minus 299 million years it is during the Carboniferous period that Pangea appears almost all the continents are welded into a single Continental Mass another element to remember about this geological phase is the important transgression of the warm Waters of the paleothis on the Continental platforms it allows many coral reefs to develop erosion also brings many changes it favors the formation of mountains but also vegetation the amount of CO2 will therefore largely decrease and at the same time lower the temperature of the planet which is now about 15 degrees Celsius or 59 degrees Fahrenheit if the family of arthropods like the trilobite that we were able to discover in the Cambrian is losing speed and is coming to an end other Marine specimens continue to evolve because of the Constitution of coral reefs the population of certain groups of marine animals proliferates brachiopods echinoderms and mollusks for example reside in these warm Waters here is a member of the brachiopod family the productus subaculties its shell is very small between 12 and 24 millimeters only it walks not far from what looks like a plant from afar but which is not quite one [Music] crinoids have a morphology that reminds a plant it is to this resemblance that they owe their name crinoid means sea Lily the stem can be more or less long and the roots are fixed in the seabed at the other end we can see a crown it is made up of the various branched arms of the crinoid it is a real shelter for many marine animals like gastropods for example if its arms form a refuge they also allow it to feed on Plankton by filtration the stem constitutes a calceria skeleton this specimen as you may have guessed is part of the shark family the most impressive thing about this fish is without a doubt its jaw look closely you will notice that its lower jaw is shaped like a circular saw this does not bode well for other small vertebrates that cross its path another rather oddly shaped shark family is the stethacanthus family here is one of them a stethacanthus altenensis its dorsal fin looks like a kind of anvil was it to frighten its potential Predators or a Charming asset for the reproduction period difficult to say this specimen is one of the first cartilaginous fish that swam in the ocean it shares this small feat with a cloud of selecci and the Glad Backus it appreciates very much small fishes but also primitive amphibians that it managed to hunt without too much difficulty we now come to the last geological phase of the Paleozoic the Permian this period is between minus 299 and minus 251 million years old Pangea is finished the temperature oscillates between 15 and 18 degrees Celsius or 60 degrees Fahrenheit oxygen in the atmosphere continued to increase no doubt thanks to the vegetation of the continent which continued to conquer the smallest square kilometer on the surface the reefs are a real Marine breeding ground they are essential for the survival of many species corals of course help their development but they are far from being the only ones in this inter-tropical Zone see a big yellow sponge no it is not a rock but a gigantic sponge this one is probably around 2 meters or six feet many filter feeders reside here we can see brachiopods but also mollusks the one you see here is cooperaceris texanum as you can see this species has developed spines all along its shell this provides an effective defense against certain predators these fish with cartilaginous skeletons have been around for several million years now and they continue to develop in the Permian they have muscles adapted for swimming increasingly developed sensory organs and a powerful jaw botus is very similar to the shark we know today it could reach 2 meters or six feet in length an outstanding Predator its morphology allowed it to hunt many types of prey the shape of its teeth allows us to believe that it fed as well on fish as on other marine animals here is another specimen of the same family despite its appearance orthocanthus is indeed A Primitive shark it has a rather long and slender body but it also has sharp teeth unlike the previous fishes these are fishes with a bony skeleton another specificity of this family of vertebrate fishes the ryed fin I.E with a rigid bony part here is Abdullah Blaine Valley it measures between 5 and 20 centimeters or between two and eight inches for the adult specimens its dorsal fin is in the continuity of the anal fin it also has ventral fins but they are rather small and thin it was undoubtedly a good swimmer this faculty was surely an essential survival technique in order to flee its numerous Predators like actinidon amphibian or sharks like Explora canthus we have not mentioned this family until now it appeared in the Carboniferous but it developed mainly in the Permian and Triassic some of them are only a few centimeters or feet long While others are close to 10 meters or more than 30 feet as you can see this category is very varied as incredible as it may seem in this class there is a family of chemnospondals they are carnivorous and have made a place for themselves on land as well as in the sea in fresh water here is one of them an areops megasophilus it is quite impressive isn't it it can measure up to three meters or 10 feet and probably weighs more than 200 kilos or 440 pounds its huge mouth doesn't let you know what's inside but if you get a little closer and open its jaw you will see that it has many curved teeth incredible for an amphibian right they also have an enamel with a pleated pattern even its palette is formidably equipped there are three pairs of fangs curved backwards it's a real trap for even the slippery prey none of the Aquatic animals that we met seem to realize the drastic changes that are taking place and the serious consequences that they are about to undergo the reunion of all the continents in a single block causes a generalized reduction of the sea level the formation of Pangea thus leads to the reduction of the surface of the Seas which were largely populated the sea level drops by 250 meters or more than 820 feet the seas are then shallow the water is stagnant and warm poorly oxygenated and therefore unfavorable to animal life the warm currents around the South Pole and the increase in the CO2 content of the atmosphere have allowed the polar cap that used to cover the pole to melt these changes lead to others the ice caps are no longer there or too few of them to reflect solar energy back to space intense volcanic eruptions follow one another and enrich the atmosphere with CO2 global warming is underway the greenhouse gas has combined with CO2 to increase the intensity of this warming even more the increase in ocean temperatures has destabilized the methane deposits stored in the ocean floor huge eruptions of Basalt are taking place in Siberia spitting more and more CO2 into the atmosphere the greatest biological crisis of all time is underway nothing can stop it anymore much less known Than The Disappearance of non-avian dinosaurs the Permian Triassic crisis is nevertheless the most deadly the Permian Triassic Extinction is one of the most deadly perhaps even the most severe that the world has ever suffered ninety percent of marine species 75 percent of vertebrates almost all primitive amphibians will be wiped off the face of the Earth foreign takes its rights life takes its course nothing is simple it takes time but nature is amazing we are now entering the Mesozoic it is located between minus 251 and -66 million years if the beginning of the Paleozoic marks a turning point for living organisms thanks to the appearance of specific cells the Mesozoic witnessed the emergence of new species such as mammals birds dinosaurs of course and angiosperms the latter are plants that can form flowers and fruits this phenomenon has an enormous impact on the terrestrial ecosystem divided into three periods the Triassic the Jurassic and the Cretaceous the Mesozoic began in a single continent Pangea then as the periods progressed lands were to break up fall apart drift apart and create the geographical world we know today in the Triassic period all the continents were United in a single land called Pangea but little by little two groups separated to give birth to larasia and gondwana the climate becomes more changeable there are tropical areas others more temperate and dry and arid areas there seems to be also more marked Summers and Winters the fauna and Flora have adapted to these new conditions at the base of the food chain we find sponges polyps crinoids insects will also become more and more abundant especially in the Jurassic these animals allow others to survive especially fish we are here during the first phase of the Mesozoic on the geological time scale the Triassic is between minus 252 and -201 million years ago the average temperature is 18 degrees Celsius or 64 degrees Fahrenheit but it can vary depending on the region some are destined others are affected by the monsoon the icy areas are very sparsely populated temperate areas are already more livable but it is especially in the tropical zones that life is the most effervescent in the ocean the atmosphere consists of 18 oxygen but contains very little CO2 only 0.25 percent the climate was warmer during the entire Mesozoic the Earth did not experience glaciation the ocean tries to reconstitute the reefs the First underwater habitat for a large part of aquatic species Tetra coralian corals have been largely wiped out little by little hexacoralior corals are taking their place here you can see calcerius algae supporting the corals and the hard work of building a reef soon life will be able to flourish again in the Triassic species that had tried to develop in the Permian finally managed to make a place for themselves in this world ammonites and sea urchins for example diversify and proliferate look right there you can see a cryoceratites amerisy it is part of the ammonites it is called unrolled ammonite you can probably understand why its shell rolls up on itself and forms an effective protection against certain predators a little further on another ammonite serotite some apparatus goes in search of food the Mesozoic is often called the age of reptiles in the Triassic period reptiles will compete with vertebrates on land as well as in the sea they take over this group of reptiles looks a bit like dolphins they are ichthyosaurs there is a californosaurus and a little further on anutatsasaurus these Marine specimens were between 1 and 10 meters long that is to say between 3 and 30 feet long they fed exclusively on fish as you can see these species were viviparous this female is in the process of expelling her Young in the Predator category ichthyosaurs had to share space with no thesaurus this reptile is semi-aquatic it is a nothosaurus it looks a bit like a lizard look closely at its legs they are equipped with webbed toes it can therefore easily swim but also move on land it has a long neck a long snout and very fine in pointed teeth its tail was used as a propeller to move in the water faster its favorite food is fish but it sometimes feeds on other marine animals if it has nothing else to eat even if it is adapted to swimming it lays its eggs on dry land it is not fully adapted to Aquatic Life although it does quite well in the water it lives on the shore and spends part of the time out of the water when necessary [Music] here is ceriseosaurus calcagni which presents itself to us in it we don't see any toes anymore they have been replaced by real fins as you can see his neck and his tail are very long he is a very good swimmer and he is also very fast in the water this is a valuable asset for hunting it lives in lagoons alongside the nothosaurus the pleuriserati it is one of the largest Marine vertebrates at the Triassic these small water lizards lived only in the Triassic here is a small kykasaurus this elongated animal could be up to one meter or three feet long its limbs are paddle shaped they allow him to move in the water with a disconcerting ease considering his size and weight in the family of pachy pleurosaurs we also find the anerosaurus and dactylosaurus they are the first of this family to have lived in Europe the serpianosaurus lived in the same regions we will now have to leave this small world to discover the Jurassic the Jurassic follows directly after the Triassic this period is very favorable to marine species the transgression begins and invades a large part of the continents you must first observe the Flora in order to note and understand the changes that took place radiolarians such as ellipse or saturnalis are unicellular planktonic animals a few hundred micrometers in diameter they provide the silica necessary for the green algae that proliferate radiolaria would have appeared in part thanks to underwater volcanic eruptions these small and complex organisms are as useful as they are beautiful [Music] look at this sagana Senna stellata when the soft Parts die this is what you can find as a structure under the sea this is its skeleton the star formation is magnificent these small radialar organisms abounded in the Jurassic the most likely reason for this abundance would be the upwelling of deep cold water rich in nutrients they bring back to the surface of the ocean many nutrients radiolaria are also symbiotic species algae unicellular or dinoflagellate live in harmony with these salacious Marine plantlets [Music] in the middle of these algae lives a Hilda saris bifrons this small Predator catches its prey with its tentacles for the moment it does not seem to be hunting he surely had dinner a short time ago that leaves us all the Leisure to observe it a little more closely its shell is in flattened spiral you notice that it is very ribbed and all in relief inside there are chambers these are filled with air and allow the buoyancy of our Hilda Saras bifrons [Music] this specimen is probably a female the females are bigger than the males they measure between 95 and 175 millimeters while the males do not exceed 40 millimeters here is a stenopterygias it is part of the ichthyosaur family that we have already met its appearance and behavior are very similar to those of dolphins it swims most of its time in deep water it hunts and feeds on fish but also on cephalopods mollusks equipped with tentacles the specific cells have largely developed and refined since the Cambrian aristonopter regius has a skin composed of two distinct layers the epidermis and the dermis it also has a layer of fat that allows it to preserve the internal temperature of its body but let's not linger too long we have an appointment with a plesosaurus and he doesn't like to wait here is elasmosaurus platyurus he is a member of the pleisasaur family the long-necked marine reptiles this one is seven meters or 22 feet long but it can easily reach 15 meters or 50 feet as an adult inside its neck are more than 32 cervical vertebrae one would think that their barrel-shaped body long neck and small legs would not help them much in the ocean but despite appearances this sea monster is quite agile and very powerful first of all its legs are also fins these allow him to swim a bit like turtles it explores the oceans and does not limit itself to a given territory it is Lively and has a very powerful jaw it quickly became a feared predator in the four corners of the globe not far from there another member of the pleisasaur family prowls around it is a Morton area seymourensis it has not adopted the same diet as the other members of its family as you can see its jaw and teeth are totally different from elasmosaurus platyurus it has long thin and mostly outward facing teeth after several years of study and research on the skeleton of one of them we now know that this particular specimen of plesosaurs feeds in the manner of Baleen whales by filtration when it opens its mouth it captures a large quantity of water containing Krill tiny shrimps small fish or small shells it rejects the water through its teeth and retains its breakfast [Music] for the small anecdote the plesosaurs would perhaps not be all extinct the Scottish legend of Loch Ness affirms that one of them named Nessie would still live there [Music] the microscopic algae that serve as the building blocks of the marine food chain are growing at a staggering rate you can't see them with a naked eye but this water is teeming with coca-liferita this is a single-celled green algae surrounded by a carapace of calcerous test formed by discs these algae constituted the main part of the phytoplankton in the Cretaceous Period and where the basis of marine ecosystems they benefit the large groups of invertebrates still present in the Cretaceous mollusks such as ammonites or rudists sponges echinoderms such as holothurians crinoids or sponges and cnidarians jellyfish corals multiply and diversify more numerous they allow other animals especially vertebrates such as fish sharks and marine reptiles to survive multiply and develop in turn at the top of the food chain are the reptiles the ichthyosaurs declined to the benefit of the plesosaurs and mosasaurs [Music] the hydrotherosaurus you see fishing in the middle of this school of fish is a pleisosaur it is 13 meters or 40 feet tall its head is only 33 centimeters or 12 inches long but its neck has no less than 60 vertebrae it uses its limbs as paddles it can move vertically horizontally and even turn thanks to its legs fin it just needs to accelerate its Pace to propel itself on a prey and capture it this animal is very impressive look at the way it moves but let's go back to the surface a little see that reptile it's a Mosasaurus he's got his eye on that Pteranodon the bird is busy watching a school of fish and doesn't see that it's at the mercy of the reptile he catches it in a fraction of a second this Mastodon is a Tylosaurus Mosasaurus it is close to the verit and the snake with him everything seems to be disproportionate it has a morphology adapted to predation even its tail is incredibly muscular it is equipped with two pairs of fins and they are very efficient he is an outstanding swimmer skilled fast and Powerful another particularity of the Tylosaurus is that its head is long as well as its body as you can see it now is marked it must be said that these mosasaurs are known for their ferocity they could attack other Predators or fight with their own fellow creatures the fights were terrible they fed on fish but also on seabirds sea turtles and even pisosaurs we will leave the Cretaceous with this God of the seeds Our Journey Through Time and the ocean ends here at the end of the Cretaceous the Earth is hit by a giant meteorite which by darkening the atmosphere causes the collapse of the primary production of the oceans the different animals of the food chain are starving the famine kills Eminence rudists non-avian dinosaurs and many others are wiped out from the biosphere nothing will ever be the same again but all this you will have perhaps the chance to discover it in another Journey foreign

Channel: Wondody | The World of Odysseys

Views: 576,435

Keywords: wondodi, science, space, documentary, earth, space documentary, universe, abyss, ocean, history, history of the earth, origin of life, animal documentary, history documentary, natural documentary, dinosaurs documentary, journey, history of the universe, earth documentary, pangea, earth history, universe documentary, earth 4 billion years ago, earth 4.5 billion years ago, earth 3 billion years ago, prehistoric planet, prehistoric ocean, prehistoric ocean documentary, prehistoric earth

Id: TY6UMsjZ6a4

Length: 80min 7sec (4807 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 19 2023