How Earth Made Us HD Full Episode | 1of5 Deep Earth | 5.1 HD Geology Documentary | Iain Stewart

[Music] hidden unseen within the earth extraordinary geological forces at work I versus forces that have shaped our history to really understand and appreciate them have got to go deep into the earth itself [Music] this is the naica mine in northern Mexico the starting point for a journey to one of the most spectacular and extreme places on or in the planet really starting to feel at night getting hotter and hotter the deeper and ago this heat is just a taste of what lies ahead finally I arrived at what they call base camp you know where our heading is just so extreme so oppressive but I'm gonna need all of these people all of these are these control systems all of this cat over here just to get there it's gonna be like visiting another planet beyond here is a chamber that reveals the power of the NRF to influence human affairs but to get there they've had to develop some pretty esoteric equipment give us it's like a chain mail ice cubes was heavy isn't the special refrigerated suit will keep me cool so this brings they're my core temperature right yes oh it was very cold suddenly that's very odd but it's not the heat alone that's potentially lethal this is it the oxygen yes it's pressure it's fresher yes you'll need it the heat is combined with nearly 100% humidity if I breathe that combination moisture would begin to condense inside my lungs after about 10 minutes I'd start to suffer kid [Music] but oh that's it I could die it seems a lot of effort but inside there is one of the geological wonders of the world [Music] [Music] that is unbelievable [Music] it's just odd [Music] absolutely gorgeous [Applause] this is la cueva de los cristales for my money the most spectacular cave of crystals discovered anywhere in the world [Music] know I've traveled around the world to see some of the most amazing Georgie but this place s place just tops it off behind the cannon it really needs perfect you can see theorems of translation and their different types you can see these ones unlike Rosie's build enough and then these columns these panels absolutely magnificent [Music] until recently no one knew this chamber existed it was uncovered when miners broke through by chance [Music] you know these extraordinary crystals are made up almost entirely of a pretty ordinary man room gypsum it's a sheer scale of a man a stranger [Music] there's strange world is shaped by forces that have had a profound impact on human civilization [Music] how this heat this heats just too much is unbearable but I wear the heat just put it's all about it's the whole point it's this cauldron that's the reason that these crystals are here it's so hot because only about five kilometers below the cavern is an area of the Earth's crust that is superheated molten rock this heats water which dissolves minerals from the surrounding rock phenomenal pressure forces this mineral rich water up through cracks in the rock and fold this giant cavern here the conditions were perfect for the minerals to slowly crystallize back out of the water the cave lay undisturbed for over half a million years so the gypsum crystals just kept growing until the miners broke through and the cave was drained but the hot n earth has done far more than create these crystals that incredible hot world hadn't just beneath the surface is a driving force for powerful geological events that have shaped the fate of peoples throughout history this is the Temne Valley in Israel's Negev desert today it's pretty well deserted but over 6,000 years ago this place witnessed one of the world's first great scientific breakthroughs [Music] up until this point humans had made all the tools from stuff just flying around stone wood borne anything really that it can get no hands on but then between six and seven thousand years ago our ancestors made an extraordinary imaginative leap they realize that the rock here contained a secret these green vines are called malachite and it was these malachite seems that around six and a half thousand years ago we're at the center of that incredible leap of human ingenuity like the gypsum inside the crystal cave these bands of malakut formed when hot fluids rose from deep and say the planet and leaked into these rocks but unlike gypsum but malachite is heated up it does something special it releases a metal coke you know in this day this copper axe head it would have been the pinnacle of technology for a start it's weighty I mean if you hit something for someone with us it would leave a dent but another thing is hard enough to take an edge and if it gets blunt you just sharpen it up you can still see evidence of the ancient smelting pits at Timna [Music] but the copper workers left behind a more striking memorial to the work a network of hundreds of tunnels all carved by hand [Music] this was the fast loud scale mining anywhere on the planet there was hourly copper miners would have squeeze through these narrow shaft on all fours smashing their way through the rockin hauling the piles of Kapolei store back to the service you know the copper revolution changed their relationship with the planet and a really profound way for the first time we were transforming what the earth offered us and in the process creating entirely new resources and copper was just the start of things to come about five thousand years ago ten was added to copper to form a new more durable metal alloy [Music] by 3,000 years ago refinements to the smelting process meant iron could be smelted out of rock [Music] metal tools became the foundation for human civilization so it's clear we owe a huge debt to those fast copper miners at Timnath but we also owe a debt to the deep earth [Music] the key to Tim Nazrul in early history is its location [Music] the Earth's crust is divided into huge pieces cold plates where they meet are cracks known as fault lines [Music] Timna is next to the Dead Sea fault which separates Africa from Arabia but this fault also can extend to the deep hot interior of the earth it's this hot interior that is ultimately this source of all the metals that have so radically changed our history fault lines allow them to rise to the surface just as they did at the crystal cave in Mexico but fault lines began affecting human history even before the discovery of metals in fact we've been strangely drawn to these boundaries owns ever since the dawn of civilization and you can see why in the barren wilderness of the loop desert in Iran the landscape is covered in hundreds of holes arranged in ruse these holes in the desert can help explain our ancient attraction to fault lines but that involves me going down one something the locals seem a little beam used by hey so this is it that's tiny I don't think I'm ready said how deep is it [Music] apparently it's 50 meters that's over 150 feet okay I guess we did huh so we good though and if this deep dark hole wasn't scary enough the method for going down is unconventional at best so we pick this like a pulley and this goes over the top I guess so do I go on this you can't buy those a bit I've never gone on a rope with a man who tried to buy attracted well I think we should just do this flood she's my maid okay what could possibly go wrong there bloomerang really is deep [Music] says natural I'm gonna go tell it to the bells of the area I wasn't sure if I was claustrophobic but now realizing I think I am it's so far up I get that ah yeah I don't want to do this for over 2,000 years local people have been digging shafts like this by hand and I get the sense I'm about to find out why look at that this is the answer the essential ingredient of every civilization on earth called fresh drinking water this is what made this remote corner of the desert one of the few places in the region that could sustain towns and cities and I'll tell you after a trip like that this is so nice to have right off to explore a bit I want to find where the water's coming from this tunnel leading off the shaft is called a cannot it's one of many in this region hacked out of solid rock to capture grown water that's stored deep below the desert I'm feelin Isabella lundergran rain show that's Chow what about a couple hundred meters now it seems to be little small little smaller narrow here OS is that this is the the source of all this water is just poor and end from here underground water exists beneath the most deserts that is usually so far down there's no practical way of getting at it the difference is here there's a fall plane the fault is full of thick clay produced by the grinding of the surrounding rocks as they rub along the fault lane this forms a clear dam which water can't penetrate water flowing down from the mountains pulls against the dam creating an underground reservoir through Richard kanata's dug to channel the water gravity does the rest so originally the water would have been banked up against this fault line unable to penetrate through the clear rich barrier but what the look is did was to cut a can at across the fault way breaching the barrier and releasing the water there's a simple but brilliant piece of engineering okay [Music] cannot but an ingenious early example of a mains water supply the shaft is simply a way to get access to the tunnel carrying a water so it can be repaired today they cannot still carry water from underneath the loop desert into the nearby city of Bao as well as irrigating the date orchards which this area is famous [Music] [Music] ah I still could supply sky oh yeah thank you but this place isn't a one-off in fact if you look back at the ancient world you see a strong link between fault lines water and the growth of some of the first cities more than 2,000 years ago Petra in Jordan was the most important trade hub in the Middle East [Music] it was built along a branch of the Dead Sea Fault and was entirely dependent on natural springs which rose along a fault and Fairless irrigation system [Music] nearby is Jericho said to be the oldest city in the world it was first settled ten thousand years ago because deep grown water froze along four lanes to create fertile pastures in the desert [Music] [Applause] more unusual is the ancient Roman city of Hierapolis it was built next to these terraces of white rock here it wasn't just water that was important minerals carried in the water were thought to have revitalizing powers so here appleís became an important healing center in the Roman Empire [Applause] whether it was minerals metals or water ancient civilizations were repeatedly drawn to the resources that faultlines brought up from the deeper [Music] it's a connection which led 11 of the 13 most important civilizations of the ancient world unknowingly to build their cities close to a plate boundary as the earliest civilizations developed so the relationship between fault lines and human history became more sophisticated they even played a role in the establishment of the most advanced early civilization of all 4000 years ago in the Bronze Age the island of Crete was home to the Minoans their showpiece was a palace of Knossos you can see where the sheer scale and sophistication of Konoe sauce that the Minoans weren't just another airlie civilization this in a way was the beginning of modern society certainly this was a place that you and I would have felt reasonably at home there was running water a sewage system and large stores of food and wine it all allowed the Minoans to create a new kind of society for me all this is a moment in history that is much underappreciated what the Minoans represent is a great pivotal point when life switched from being dictated by the grim realities of survival into something that we could actually enjoy what the Minoans invented was the deal and the Minoans took their pioneering responsibilities in this area very seriously this may look like a car park but really this is where the paraphernalia of the Minoan leisure society really took off because this is one of the world's first sports stadiums [Applause] and it's day 500 spectators would crammed in here to watch boxing wrestling and the Minoans most peculiar sport Bulacan the basic idea was in weight but a massive bill to run at you then at the crucial moment you'd grab hold of the horns and flip yourself over the top who do you practice that [Music] no one knows why the Minoans leftover bills but this bizarre sport was a forerunner to bullfighting but the real legacy of the Minoans was how they made their wealth this was the Bronze Age to make bronze you need two metals copper and tin the problem was finding them for the Minoans copper was relatively near at hand in Cyprus thanks to the fault line beneath it 10 was trickier inside the Earth's crust only 2 parts per million or 10 so it's much rarer the Hunts 410 lettered distant lands there were the edge of the van Doorn wound [Music] one such place was so full of ten that it was called the kisser towards the ten Islands today we know it as Britain [Music] but the Centers of Bronze Age civilization were in the Mediterranean 3,000 kilometers away 10 was also found in other far flung locations like Spain Central Europe and even Iran which meant 10 had to be traded and for this Crete was perfectly positioned the Minoans exploited the position at the crossroads of many different trading routes to become the world's first maritime superpower it may not seem like it today but in Bronze Age times less Eiland was at the center of the known world with the mineral-rich Hartman's of Europe Middle East and North Africa all around for the Minoans it wasn't so much about owning the raw materials it's knowing what to do them how to put them together they built an empire because they'd worked out how to exploit the geology that their neighbors had on their doorsteps [Music] by the time of the Minoans fault lines have been a crucial factor in the success of many early civilizations but the earth extracted a price for these riches it was a price paid in full by the Minoans at the heart of the story was a small archipelago a hundred kilometers north of Crete today that island chain is known as Santorini famous for its pretty white houses and rugged coastline [Music] but at the time of the balloons this was a busy port the key to the trading empire if crete was the heart of the Minoan culture then this place was as back born a center of Industry that helped view what was at a time the most advanced civilization on the planet but Santorini held a deadly secret unknown to the Minoans it sat above one of the Earth's major plate boundaries [Music] Santorini formed when the African plate started sliding below the European plate as the African plate melted inside the deep earth molten rock grows back to the surface to create what is actually a volcano around three and a half thousand years ago of s14 or dead what will kennels tend to do it blew up unluckily for the Minoans it was the biggest eruption of the last 10,000 years today he can still trace why the eruption was so devastating and the cliffs around Santorini this cliff is made entirely of ash and rocks spat out by the volcano it's get distinct layers to it each of which are from different stages of the eruption in other words this rock faces a timeline of events claiming this cliff helps understand the disaster that was unlike anything anyone had ever seen before this level here was the start of the eruption I'm kind of standing on the Minoan land surface and then the next five hours the eruptions have through it an enormous mushroom cloud of debris it just rained in ash after ash after asking this stuff is just like Selleck a glass it gets into your lungs and it just relax rates your lungs you used chalk on it [Music] yes innocent-looking gravel was from the second the most lethal stage of the eruption see water invaded the volcano and that mix of water with molten lava produced a series of incredibly violent eruptions that punched a jet of superheated gas and debris high into the atmosphere as these clouds of hot gas and lava felt back to earth they engulfed the outer edges of the åland but incredibly the worst was still to come once the volcano had spewed out everything it was in its gut the weight of it collapsed into the void below producing the most enormous blast and then the death throes of that final blast who was one last catastrophic flood the center of the volcano crashed into the sea that sudden collapse created a gigantic tsunami which quickly spread out across the Aegean towards Crete what a civilization whose strength was a mere Navy the tsunami would have been devastating I thought that as the tsunami swept through the Aegean and engulfed the motor oil and harbors and any boat sudden that would have been smashed into matchsticks so France is not that surprising that not a single port from the vast minority has ever been phone [Music] this was a catastrophe from which the Minoans would never recover [Music] a long chalk and ash plate and a giant tsunami meant that this maritime power was on its knees with the fleet gone a population decimated and their most strategic trading post obliterated the Minoans went downhill fast then our century or so of the eruption this once great civilization was finished the eruption of Santorini was an extreme event but ancient history is littered with tales of cities destroyed along plate boundaries and it's not just volcanoes that do the damage fault lines are also home to another deadly force of nature [Music] earthquakes recent events in Haiti are a reminder of just how devastating earthquakes can be the appalling disaster is a terrible example of how the destructive power of the deep earth can be concentrated along fault lines [Music] over the past 10,000 years many cities first established to take advantage of fault lines have been flattened [Music] her appleís with its famous health spa was destroyed by a giant earthquake in AD 60 Jericho the oldest city in the world has been heads over 15 times by a large earthquakes some believe it was this that famously brought its walls tumbling down [Music] likewise Patra was abandoned after an earthquake demolished his irrigation system in AD 360 and it continues to this day in 2003 the city of bomb famous for its can ads was devastated by a massive earthquake which killed over 30,000 people it makes you realize that in effect much of human history has centered on a bargain between us and the NRF plate boundaries provide access to resources from deep and save the planet [Music] but live near one we also live with the rescue of a sudden catastrophic disaster but even the most advanced of our ancestors had no way of explaining the strange coincidence invite it's only in the last 50 years that scientists have finally understood the bargain was inadvertently struck all those years ago you can see the theory in action in the middle of the Pacific Ocean [Music] this is Kilauea on Hawaii's Big Island it's one of the most active volcanoes on the planet because it's fed by a chamber of magma deep inside is a coda hotspot the hotspot has effectively punched a hole in the Pacific plate the piece of the Earth's crust on which Hawaii sits but removed the ocean around Hawaii and something strange is revealed a chain of mountains stretching along the seabed for over 5,000 kilometers this line of extinct volcanoes is explained when you realize that the Pacific plate is continually on the move as the plate drifts over this stationary hot spot a volcano forms that after about a million years the moving plate poseable kino away from the hot spot meanwhile another eruption begins forming a new island today Kilauea is still growing but it hasn't get long to go in a few thousand years it will drift away from the hot spot and eventually disappear beneath the waves the Hawaiian island chain is a beautiful demonstration of a big idea that explains why plate boundaries bring us extraordinary benefits and terrible hazards in equal measure it's called plate tectonics the key is that all the plates which divide the Earth's surface are continually on the move where they collide they crumpled the land to form great mountain ranges like the Himalayas where they pull apart oceans forming a gap [Music] the friction of this continual movement means that plate boundaries become melting zones where minerals are concentrated and are able to rise towards a surface but the flipside is that huge amounts of energy are concentrated along the plate boundaries when one plate slides underneath another full quinoa's form when two plates lock together and then suddenly break free the joke causes devastating earthquakes so we now know that plate boundaries are so rich in resources for exactly the reasons they are so dangerous yet a strange thing is this groundbreaking discovery has made a little difference to where we live if you look at the plate boundaries it's clear that many cities are located close by in fact 10 of the 20 largest cities in the world are next to dangerous fault lines so why are we still building next to these danger zones in the rugged hills of central California is part of the answer [Music] and to see it I'm heading into the skies at least I hope I am this is the Dinky's helicopter I've ever been on it'll be nice when it's finished [Music] [Music] I'm going to see perhaps the most famous geological feature on the planet and this is a best way to find it [Music] yeah beautiful things here [Music] this line of hell's with a trench cut through the middle is the San Andreas Fault this fault is a boundary between the North American plate to the east and the Pacific plate to the west for 25 million years they've been grinding past each other to create the largest earthquake Fault in North America [Music] beside address phone starts up there in Northern California then slices down miles through here to the border with Mexico as it goes it cuts through cities and towns and passes roads bridges aqueducts [Music] the feather there was a ball lightning comes inner body fabrics [Music] but a good reason why over 20 million people carrier and living so close to this danger zone his at this plate boundary has made California rich it began with the Californian Gold Rush these nuggets of gold may have been found in streams but the golden rigidly rose in hot mineral rich fluids for stop between the plates [Music] in fact almost everything that makes California wealthy is at least partly related to the San Andreas Fault [Music] take for example the scenery it was the colliding plate that forced up mountains along the Californian coast and this dramatic landscape attracts thousands of tourists every year who spend an estimated two billion dollars on sightseeing alone Ben dosa Wayne that's partly going to the san andreas to California is mostly desert but when moist air rolls in off the ocean and hits the mountains it rises to form rain that irrigates this otherwise arid landscape it's a microclimate that has made this one of them was productive farming regions in America but the ultimate gift of the San Andreas is this oil black gold this is an oil see which is when oil leaks to the surface just like a natural spring except less is black and gooey look at that 150 years ago when the first people were looking for oil even the most witless prospector realized that places like this a good place to drill and drill me did over the years around 200,000 wells are being sunk here [Music] most people probably think of Texas as America's oil State but California Wars and Stella's one of the world's biggest oil producers during more than 700,000 barrels of crude oil oh the ground everything [Music] the oil for millions of years ago deep inside the earth but it was the San Andreas Fault split the rock and brought it close enough to the surface to be exploited so it seems that the San Andreas Fault has brought California some serious economic benefits it's shaping of the land has created the conditions for oil for agriculture for wine and even for tourism but how much is that really what the money man have done the songs they reckon this state owns around 100 billion dollars every year because of the San Andreas Fault California's geology is a license to print money earthquake geologists let me know that California gets struck by a big seismic shake every 100 to 150 years and there was major quakes a huge destructive that doesn't seem to dampen the spirits of the number crunchers that are in these skyscrapers it's what towed that in a city like LA a major earthquake will cause up to 250 billion dollars worth of damage now that is a huge sum but average day over a century you're still in profit you've got a hundred billion dollars a year community versus a one-off debt of two hundred and fifty billion dollars that's a gain of 40 to one any economist will tell you that's a pretty decent return 10,000 years after our ancestors first settled along plate boundaries the benefits of living along a fault line are as potent as ever the point is that in pure economic towns were still financially better off of living along a fault line than not even when it's one of the most active in the world but the problem that I have with that equation is that life's not just about money Istanbul the only city in the world to straddle Asia and Europe best location at the crossroads of two continents has made it a trading hub for centuries that's why I find it so exciting it's a vibrant bustling cosmopolitan place [Music] but estándares location also brings with it great danger [Music] nearby lies the North Anatolian fault one of the most seismically active plate boundaries on the planet scientists reckon a major earthquake is due here anytime [Music] as little doubt that in the very near future Istanbul will be struck by a big earthquake it's a strange feeling that this city that I love to be destroyed in my life but it doesn't have to be here they're starting to rewrite the towns of our ancient bargain with fault lines the aim is to enjoy the benefits of living along this plate boundary without having to pay a price in human life below the waters of the Bosphorus the channel that separates Europe from Asia is a clue to the solution [Music] you know this is such an eerie feeling 55 meters below the level of the Bosphorus and I'm walking parallel to one of the most active earthquake zones in the world so not a hill a place you expect about a major engineering project and yet that's exactly where the Turkish authorities decided to build an underground train line this tunnel which will one day like Asia to Europe is the deepest tunnel of its kind on earth and yet it runs alongside one of the most dangerous earthquake faults in the world [Music] these engineers are supremely confident they've got the rest covered there's some technical wizardry the whole tunnel is designed to absorb the vibrations of even the largest of earthquakes what these guys are doing effectively is confronting the earthquake threat head-on this technology won't allow us to stop earthquakes but it shows that if we really want to protect against their consequences we can unfortunately in Istanbul this tunnel is only half the story you know high-tech underground train tunnels are all very well but the reality is that most people die in a next up quickly die because the buildings that love and what can collapse and in that sense this Danville is completely unprepared it's reckoned that when the next earthquake comes it might bring down a quarter of a city and the thing is it doesn't have to be like that because we have a technical know-how to keep building standing the irony is Istanbul already has a building that has survived earthquakes for centuries [Music] this magnificent building is the Aggie of Sofia it's gotta be my favorite place in the city for the tourists that come here this is a fitting symbol of Istanbul reputation as a crossroads of different civilizations and it's 1,500 year history it's been a church and a mosque and never museum [Music] the agia sofia has stood through more than a dozen earthquakes without the benefit of modern technology it was built on such a massive monumental scale that even the biggest earthquakes never managed to knock it down [Music] you know it's no accident that when the earthquake does strike the two things that will probably survive are one of the oldest buildings in the city and one of the newest and that's because they're both structures that we've decided are worthy of looking after today we have the technology to protect every building whether it's flats factories our offices if we choose to [Music] for ten thousand years we've lived with the benefits and the dangers of fault lines [Music] you know it's clear that people are going to continue to live along fault lines probably for the next 10,000 years but no we have two clear options stick with the old regime and take our chances or embrace the new and take some kind of control the trouble is a protection doesn't come cheap reinforcing every building in an earthquake zone would be massively expensive so even with all our knowledge the deep earth is going to continue to confront us with some tough choices for years to come next time the magic of water it's constantly transforming itself shifting between guises and from place to place our struggle to control it has shaped the destiny of some of the greatest civilizations in history [Music] and how earth made us continues next Tuesday at 10:00 next tonight after the pandemic that never materialized horizon takes a closer look at the

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Keywords: how earth made us, deep earth, documentary, geology, geology documentary, continents, plate tectonics, iain stewart, bronze age, iron age, crust, magma, volcano, bbc, bbc documentary, good documentary, crete, minoan, knossos, copper, bronze, tin, smelting, plate boundary, wind, earth, fire, water, human planet, civilisation, evolution, evolution of civilisation, win currents, ocean currents, how earth made us full episode

Id: emEq6x5_dpc

Length: 57min 9sec (3429 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 23 2020