Mysteries of Loch Ness Uncovered | How the Earth Was Made (S1, E4) | Full Episode | History

earth a 4.5 billion year old planet still  evolving as continents shift and clash   volcanoes erupt glaciers grow and  recede the earth's crust is carved   in numerous and fascinating ways leaving  a trail of geological mysteries behind in this episode loch ness in the  highlands of scotland is explored   it holds more water than any other lake in britain   with a bedrock containing some of the oldest  rocks on the planet set in a landscape that   was once part of america loch ness is a lake  with an enduring myth the loch ness monster a team of scientists investigate how loch  ness was made the clues they uncover also   provide a window into the formation of the  earth itself deep dark and full of mystery   this is loch ness in the highlands of scotland for  a thousand years there have been claims that this   vast lake hides a strange and terrible secret  the fabled loch ness monster a mythical beast   suggested by some as a descendant of the  dinosaurs which once roamed this part of scotland loch ness would be the perfect hiding  place for a prehistoric monster at 23 miles long   and a mile wide this vast freshwater lake covers  the same area as new york's manhattan island and   it's more than 700 feet deep but the monster is  not the only mystery that surrounds loch ness in   the hills above the lock there is a type of rock  whose origin baffled scientists for years it's a   sandstone and it's the start of the investigation  into how loch ness was made it's known as the old   red sandstone and it's given that name because  it's red and it's a sandstone and it's called   old because it's about 350 million years old the  old red sandstone runs down one side of loch ness   but the most astonishing fact about these rocks is  not their age but where they come from these rocks   actually belong to my homeland of north  america because these rocks originated   on the north american continent and then have  separated from north america but many ways this   is almost a little bit of home for me here in  scotland but how do geologists know that this   old red sandstone comes from 3 000 miles away on  the other side of the atlantic ocean these rocks   are identical in age and character to the  rocks that actually form the catskill mountains   and so this part of scotland belonged  to northeastern north america for more than a thousand years  old red sandstone has been used   for building castles in this part of scotland but it's also been quarried in the u.s and  used for brownstone buildings in new york city under the microscope rocks from both  continents have an identical crystal structure   and chemical analysis has also proved  that they're exactly the same age but how did part of america end  up on the shores of loch ness   to answer this crucial question the  investigation must go much further back in time   to look for evidence in the ancient  bedrock of northern scotland it's here that the story of loch ness begins the trail starts north of loch ness  where the bedrock comes to the surface   this landscape is full of the extraordinary  mysteries of an unimaginably ancient past   it's made of a type of rock called louisian nice recent drilling and blasting for a new road cut  have exposed evidence which uncovers an amazing   chapter in earth's history the long straight  lines are the drill holes left in the rock face   modern radioisotope dating has given geologists  the first clue to understanding the origin and   formation of these rocks these rocks are very  special to geologists they're some of the very   oldest rocks in the world we see them in very  few places perhaps a dozen places across the   globe contain rocks of this age talking about  two and a half to three billion years old the   origin of the gray luisian nice lies in the first  crust that cooled on the surface of the earth   after its formation 4.5 billion years ago parts of  this crust were mixed together with the earliest   sediments buried re-melted and forced back up  again and again for more than a billion years these extraordinary rocks are the result of  that devastating period in our planet's history   and there's more evidence exposed in this road  cut revealing crucial information about the early   history of the loch ness region this exposure  contains three important pieces of geological   jigsaw puzzle first we have the grey nice 2.5 to  3 billion years old secondly we have this black   igneous material which has been intruded  into the area this is two billion years old   and thirdly we have this pink granitic  intrusion that both intrudes the black material   and the nice and this is 1.8 billion years old this evidence reveals that after the formation  of the luisian nice much younger rocks were   then melted and mixed into the ancient crust but  this process took an incredible length of time   what we've got here are rocks that record over  a billion years of earth history now to put that   into perspective that is almost a quarter of  the age of the earth recorded in this exposure this is the bedrock of loch ness it  carries an extraordinary story of   a major part of earth's history and there  are yet more secrets hidden in these rocks   it looks very much because of the temperatures  and pressures that these rocks were under that   they've been to depths of perhaps 50 miles beneath  the earth's surface in the past this suggests   that these rocks have been to hell and back two  or three occasions over a billion year period geologists now know that the only  force powerful enough to produce   this extraordinary mix of rocks is plate tectonics plate tectonics is the process by which  the giant plates of the earth's crust are   driven slowly across the planet's surface by vast  convection currents deep in the earth's hot mantle in the loch ness region the evidence  in the road cut reveals that   incredible pressures forced the  crust deep down into the earth   where it was melted deformed mixed together  then finally brought back to the surface after that for another billion  years this ancient landmass   quietly eroded down to a rough rolling landscape but this wasn't the green terrain we see now  there was much less oxygen in the earth's   atmosphere than today and the surface would have  looked like a lunar landscape desolate and sterile incredibly remnants of that billion-year-old  landscape are still preserved today   the clues are revealed in another  road cut where the trained eye   can draw amazing conclusions from  what looks like a jumble of rocks at this road cut we can see louisiana  nice which is between two and a half   and three billion years old but up here  we have something completely different   if i go up to this level and look above it  we have horizontally bedded red sandstones   this sudden change in rock type helps to unravel  the mystery hidden in these ancient formations   they're believed to have been laid down in  a continental environment by rivers we've   got river systems that laid down horizontally  bedded sedimentary rocks on an ancient landscape   so this simple outcrop reveals that even in a  world with little oxygen the ancient bedrock of   scotland was covered in rivers a billion years  ago and there's yet another secret hidden here   there is a junction between these rocks  which are almost a billion years old   and the rocks below are two and  a half to three billion years old   this is a major time gap of between  one and a half and two billion years the time gap revealed here is extraordinary   it shows that after the traumas of their early  formation the rocks of the loch ness region   went through a period of calm which lasted  more than a third of the age of the earth   the investigation into how loch ness was made  has uncovered its first evidence identical old   red sandstone found on two continents proves that  scotland and america were once joined together   some of the oldest rocks in the world reveal that  the bedrock underlying loch ness was made during   the primeval creation of the earth's crust bedded  sandstones lying on the ancient bedrock show that   rivers flowed over this landscape a billion  years ago during a long period of tranquility but the calm couldn't last forever a  major continental collision was looming   and with it the union between scotland and england the investigation into how loch ness was made will   next uncover the geological structures  which would eventually create loch ness the search for evidence begins with a  19th century scientific mystery in the   1880s geologists in scotland were baffled by a  sequence of rocks they found north of loch ness here in a remote hillside lay the problem   a huge mass of very old luisian nice  was lying on top of much younger rocks but the 19th century geologists  had never encountered this before   in their experience younger rocks  always lay on top of older beds   then one scientist invented a novel  approach to try to solve the puzzle   a survey geologist back in the victorian age 125  years ago mapped this area and his name was henry   caddell he went back to edinburgh and he worried  about what he'd seen in the field and thought how   do i replicate what i've seen how does this happen  so he built a model and he attempted then to show   using the model what it was that he saw  in the field cattle's model was simple he   suspected that some force had squeezed the rocks  horizontally to make this upside down sequence   so he built an apparatus containing  layers of sand and clay to test his ideas professor underhill is using a replica of  cattle's equipment filled with alternating   layers of black sand and plaster of paris  to try and duplicate cattle's experiment turning the screw winds the block forward  imitating the horizontal pushing force that   cattle thought was the culprit as the  horizontal force increases the layers   are pushed over each other along a shallow  plane which geologists now call a thrust fault   and we've got the first thrust appearing oh look at that another thrust going in the experiment showed cattle exactly  how older layers the ones on the bottom   are pushed over and on top of the younger  layers along the plane of the thrust fault   there's some beautiful structures in here  there's a thrust fault running through here   which duplicates the white lab and another one  through here and the final thrust vault which   is at the lowest angle out here towards the left  hand side a success in terms of a simple model   replicating what we see on the ground and i  can see how cattle and others when attempting   such things began to understand what it  was that they saw in the field they could   replicate it in a simple crude model but  replicate it in a very successful manner once cattle and his colleagues  understood the principle of thrust faults   the apparently illogical sequence of the rocks  they saw in northwest scotland began to make sense   well the slope represents a thrust fault what we  have underneath it is a bedded younger quartzite   succession which is pink above it the grey rock  the rubbly grey hillside we see above is the nice   again and the surface in between which is putting  older rock the grey material onto the pink rock   the younger material is the thrust fault just  like in the model that we saw before geologists   now know that a thrust vault is the smoking  gun that shows where continents have collided   but which continents were colliding to make  the thrust faults in scotland and how were they   involved in making loch ness the scientists  trail now led them to another thrust fault   the moin thrust the moines thrust is one of  the biggest thrust faults on earth running   for 120 miles down the northwest of scotland  it's mostly hidden from view but professor   underhill has found one of the rare locations  where the thrust can be seen on the surface   this apparently insignificant join between two  rock layers is the actual line of the thrust   and it reveals a geological bombshell the dark layer above the thrust comes from england  but the surprise lies in the yellow limestone   below it just like the old red sandstone at loch  ness this rock comes from north america this one   small piece of evidence has enormous implications  for the formation of loch ness the amazing thing   about this contact is that it's the meeting  point between two continents so here we are   on a wet scottish hillside on a sunday afternoon  and i am touching the contact between effectively   america and northwestern scotland on one hand and  england on the other as was 425 million years ago but how did these two ancient continents collide  450 million years ago a super continent containing   north america and scotland lay deep in the  southern hemisphere at its margin was an ocean   wider than the present-day atlantic on the other  side was england and europe but the forces of   plate tectonics were slowly pushing the two land  masses together well around 450 million years ago   there was a major ocean where we're standing now  it was called the iapetus ocean and it separated   america and northwestern scotland on one hand  from effectively southeastern scotland and   england on the other hand now what happened in  the 20 million years after that that ocean closed   and eventually was closed sufficiently that  two continents collided into each other the collision between america and europe  pushed massive layers of rock over each other   forcing upwards a range of mountains  higher than the himalayas are today   still firmly attached to america scotland  and england became fused together but what did this collision have  to do with the making of loch ness   the lock itself provides the  most fundamental evidence   the one thing that's quite striking about loch  ness is that when you look at it particularly from   this perspective you can see that it runs straight  almost straight as an arrow and that straightness   goes on for about 20 miles and as a geologist  that tells me that there has to be a control   on this topographic straightness because  nature doesn't produce things in straight   lines and so there's a structure here that is  controlling the overall shape of loch ness itself   this structure is the great glenn fault a  major geological fault line formed during   the continental collision 425 million years ago it  runs for more than 300 miles right across scotland   slicing the country in two loch ness exactly  follows the line of the great glen fault   the great glen fault it's not a thrust fault  like the moines thrust where material has   been pushed up over it's not a normal fault where  material drops down vertically it's lateral motion   the great glen fault is scotland's version of  the san andreas fault it's just 400 million years   older the great glen fault is no longer active  but this giant split in the earth's crust has   been a feature of the scottish landscape for more  than 400 million years it's the foundation of loch   ness and without it the lock could not exist  nor could the legend of the loch ness monster the investigation into how loch ness  was made has uncovered more evidence   the discovery of thrust faults showed  geologists what happens when continents collide   yellow limestone from north america  found at the moines thrust proves   that america and scotland crashed  into england 450 million years ago   and the shape of loch ness reveals the straight  line of the underlying great glenn fault   formed during that continental collision after  the collision the forces of plate tectonics drove   scotland south round the surface of the earth now  the investigation must follow its amazing journey the next step in the investigation into how loch  ness was made traces scotland's journey round the   surface of the earth driven by the forces  of plate tectonics understanding what the   environment was like in the past gives clues to  the location of loch ness millions of years ago so the investigation now moves on to the  jurassic period 165 million years ago the trail leads to the isle of skye an  island off the west coast of scotland   at staffin bay there is an incredible piece  of evidence which sheds light on this period   in scotland's past astonishingly it  lay in plain sight but undiscovered   until 1994 when an amateur geologist made an  extraordinary find on the flat rocky shoreline   of this popular beach he discovered a  fossilized footprint of a giant dinosaur dr anjan akatwa has come to analyze  the details of this remarkable evidence   when you walk across these ledges it's  just an incredible feeling to think that   dinosaurs walked on the same ledge that i'm  walking on now 165 million years ago this   ledge we've got this wonderful megalosaurus  footprint the megalosaur was a 25 foot high   carnivorous dinosaur quite a formidable  predator during jurassic times with some   individuals standing as tall as a football  goal post megalosaurus was a fearsome monster but how could something as temporary  as a footprint be preserved for 165   million years the footprints are so unique  what's happened is that a dinosaur has   traveled over a kind of sticky gooey mud  and their impressions have been left behind   that mud has dried off and it's hardened and then  over time windblown sand has come in and covered   that footprint over and then as further time has  developed we get layers of clay and sand building   up over that footprint and that footprint becomes  fossilized over time now over a few million years   erosion occurs and those footprints become  exposed for us to see today dr catwa is   making a plaster cast of one of the footprints  so she will be able to examine it more closely   we take the cast in order to have a record of the  footprints so we can take them back to the lab   and have a look at them and understand how this  creature used to live as she carefully removes   the plaster cast its shape reveals a 165 million  year old secret one thing that really strikes me   actually is the deep impression that this front  toe has made and how pointed it is and this tells   me that this dinosaur was moving at fast speed  and really pushing down on its front three toes   so it might have been chasing some  kind of prey but megalosaurus wasn't   the only dinosaur to leave its footprints  in these rocks only 60 miles from loch ness this is the smallest dinosaur footprint  that anybody has ever found in the world   you can actually see it's about the size of my  fingernail and we think it's acilophysis and it's   quite interesting because the small footprint here  which we think is from a hatchling is embedded   in the larger one here that you can see what we  think this tells us is that the young travelled   with their parents in groups and that most  probably the adults were looking after the young geologists have used the amazing  evidence of the footprints of   coelophysis and megalosaurus together  with the muddy rocks they were found in   to better reveal the story of  loch ness in the jurassic period at the time scotland was still attached to america  plate tectonics had driven this land mass much   nearer the equator 2 000 miles further south  than it is now and that had a major effect on   the climate and environment of loch ness back  during the jurassic times a climate and the   environment was very very different to what we see  today there would have been lush jungles full of   tropical vegetation and the dinosaurs would  have been living on the edge of these jungles   traveling over lagoon all type of wetlands  this climate was ideal for dinosaurs to live   in because it supported a huge ecosystem of  wildlife that they would have predated on the bones of one more dinosaur have recently  been found on the isle of skye the plesiosaur but this discovery generated a  completely different kind of interest   enthusiasts see a strong resemblance  between the shape of the plesiosaur   and some descriptions of the loch ness monster could a descendant of the long extinct  plesiosaur really be the source of the legend the evidence to unravel the extraordinary  geological history of loch ness is getting   stronger the findings of megalosaurus and  coelophysis footprints prove that dinosaurs   lived in scotland 165 million years ago and  that loch ness was then a subtropical paradise   2 thousand miles further south than it is  today but about 60 million years ago 5 million   years after the dinosaurs became extinct plate  tectonics would tear loch ness and america apart the investigation into how loch ness  was made now moves forward to a time   60 million years ago scotland and america are  still firmly joined together the next question is   when and how did they become separated on the isle of skye the landscape is  full of evidence which can unlock the   secrets of this turbulent  period in scotland's past at talisker bay the massive sea  cliffs provide the first clue to   the events that devastated the region  they're made entirely of volcanic lava   i'm standing here on a single lava flow and  this lava flow is only about 10 feet thick   but this whole cliff above me is made up of  lava flows maybe 150 feet or more and stretching   for miles in all directions now these lava  face are composed of basil that's the same   type of rock that is being erupted today  from modern volcanoes like hawaii or iceland geologists have calculated that these basalt lavas  on sky are about 60 million years old but where is   the volcano which erupted them the clue comes from  a range of mountains on the southern tip of sky   the coolant hills it's the type of rock that makes  up these craggy peaks which provide the evidence   made of a rock called gabriel now these are the  same chemical composition as the bath salt that's   been erupted onto the surface but there's  a difference the bath salt that was erupted   was cooled very quickly because it was exposed  to the air geologists call that fine grained   on the other hand the magma that was trapped  maybe a mile down beneath the earth's surface   that cooled pretty slowly it was kept warm for  quite a long time and so you've got very large   crystals growing and when you get a rock with  large crystals that's what we call coarse grained the large crystals in the gabbro  rocks give away their origin   they tell geologists that the coolant  hills are the remains of an enormous   magma chamber deep below the volcano where lava  was stored before being erupted onto the surface but how much lava was there we may be looking now  at a beautiful green valley but actually all these   hills around here are made up of rocks that were  formed in a series of massive volcanic eruptions   about 60 million years ago and at that  time there were volcanoes erupting   all over scotland here we are on sky  and it's just one of those volcanoes it's now known that an incredible 500 cubic  miles of lava was erupted on sky alone that's enough to cover the whole  of texas with a layer of lava   10 feet thick but this was just the tip of  the iceberg the rocks themselves revealed   that volcanoes erupted all over scotland on  a massive scale the evidence is here huge   regular columns in the lava flows looking  like they've been carved out of the rock   in reality these amazing formations are made by  gentle cooling of thick lavas exactly the same   type of columns are found in outcrops of basalt  lava 80 miles away off the west coast of scotland and as far away as the coast of ireland 150 miles  from sky these lavas have all been dated at about   60 million years old and they were also part of  the same series of massive eruptions which spread   out for hundreds of miles in all directions  but what was the cause of the eruptions   dr good enough has found another clue  which points to the origins of these lavas   and their role in the creation of loch ness this  is the ropey top to a lava flow in hawaii they   call it pahoehoe and what happens is that the lava  gets a thin skin on its surface as it cools but   it's still flowing underneath that skin and the  thin skin wrinkles and gets pushed forward giving   this ropey texture that we can see here but it's  really quite rare to see them like this in these   old lava flows but it tells us a lot about the  type of magma that was erupting from that volcano geologists know that this kind of magma comes  from deep within the earth it usually erupts on   the surface when tectonic forces split the earth's  crust apart is that what happened here 60 million   years ago at that time scotland was still joined  to north america but the two continents were being   stretched and thinned due to tectonic forces and  that allowed molten rock or magma from deep within   the earth to well up and to be erupted from those  volcanoes and eventually that volcanic activity   led to the development of a new ocean between  scotland and north america the atlantic ocean so the lavas are the trail of evidence which  show that the opening up of the atlantic ocean   began with volcanic eruptions all over scotland as magma erupted under the ocean the sea floor  spread out slowly pushing scotland and america   apart the birth of the atlantic ocean had  a direct effect on the making of loch ness   as the ocean grew the huge forces  involved reawakened the 400 million   year old great glenn fault so faults like  the great glenn these are zones of weakness   in earth's crust and they're like scars or wounds  they can reopen and in the case of the great glen   it was reactivated when the atlantic began opening  50 to 60 million years ago and this is why you see   this feature now present in today's landscape even  though the fault itself is 400 million years old   the massive geological movements shattered and  weakened the rocks along the fault along this line   of weakness a river started cutting down through  the shattered rocks slowly carving out a valley for the next 55 million years the  landscape of scotland weathered and eroded   the outlines of the mountains softened and the  coastline began to take on its present shape   loch ness became a long river valley  following the line of the great glen fault the investigation is close to uncovering  the final stages in the story of how loch ness   was made huge lava flows on the isle of  skye reveal that massive volcanic eruptions   60 million years ago were the start of  the separation of scotland and america   the sharp outline of the 400 million year old  great glenn fault shows that the fault was   reawakened as scotland and america were torn apart  but there was one final land-changing event to   come nature wasn't finished with loch ness and it  was this event that created the lake we see today tracing a violent history that lasted for  three billion years the investigation into   how loch ness was made now moves forward to  the recent past only ten thousand years ago the final link in the chain of  evidence is to discover how the wide   deep waters of loch ness were finally  made and whether a descendant of the   dinosaurs could possibly have survived there  to create the myth of the loch ness monster a vital clue was uncovered in the 19th  century by one of the greatest scientific   minds the world has ever known charles  darwin in 1838 darwin came to scotland to   investigate a mystery in the remote valley  of glen roy about 20 miles from loch ness for hundreds of years people had been  baffled by three extraordinary parallel   lines which run round both sides of the valley   strange horizontal cuts in the hillside in some  places more than 30 feet wide these parallel roads   as they are called run exactly level for more than  20 miles what could have made them dr pete nino   is following in darwin's footsteps to the glenroy  parallel roads and the story they revealed their creation was a mystery for a very long time  and initially people you know just thought they   were perhaps created by giants a thing of myth  or legend and then in the in the 19th century a   number of scientists came here including charles  darwin and when he saw them he thought they were   exactly the same as features he'd seen in south  america where earthquakes had uplifted old   marine shorelines and left them  abandoned higher up from the sea   darwin was so convinced the parallel roads were  the remains of old seashores that he published a   paper with his results and the world of science  believed him but for once darwin was wrong   in 1840 two years after darwin's visit a swiss  scientist named louis agassi came to glenroy   agassi had spent a lifetime studying glaciers   and the effects of glaciation on  the landscape of the swiss alps when he examined the parallel roads  agassi realized that they were   ancient shorelines but that the valley had been  filled not by the sea but by a freshwater lake from his knowledge of glaciers in the alps agassi  was able to show that a freshwater lake had once   filled the valley the lake was kept full by a  huge glacier which blocked the end of the valley   as the glacier melted and froze  again three times the water in the   valley emptied and filled up to a different  level carving out the three relic beaches   initially agassi wasn't believed because people  believed darwin and then over time it became clear   that agassi was correct and darwin claimed it  was one of his great embarrassments that he got   something so terribly wrong which sort of shows  that even great scientists can make mistakes   the evidence that glenn roy convinced agassi  that many features in the scottish landscape   must have been made by glaciers and that led  him to the startling conclusion at the time   that the whole of scotland  had once been covered by ice and the moment you make that leap that what you've  got here was created by glaciers you've instantly   got to make the leap to the fact that we must  have had a very cold climate here in the past   cold enough for rice sheets and glasses to to  build up this site is of world importance in   terms of the understanding of glaciations  and you know the fact that in the past   ice covered a much larger proportion  of the planet than it currently covers   this extraordinary investigation led eventually to  the idea of the ice age periods in the geological   past when much of the northern hemisphere  was covered in glaciers and ice sheets since agassi's discoveries scientists have been  investigating the role of ice in making loch   ness about two and a half million years ago  the global climate started to cool and since   then we've had a series of repeated glaciations  roughly about once every hundred thousand years each time the ice advanced temperatures  plummeted average winter temperatures were   at least 30 degrees colder than today as the ice  built up it reached extraordinary thicknesses   the ice sheet over the center of scotland would  have been three or four thousand feet thick   here in loch ness it would have certainly  been um a couple of thousand feet thick   you might have seen a few of the highest mountains  just peeking out the top of the ice sheet   but in the main the whole of the landscape would  have just been blanketed by by ice but what effect   did this vast weight of ice have on the creation  of loch ness the lock itself is difficult to   investigate because it's full of water but there's  another location where the evidence is clear   just 20 miles from loch ness is the forbidding  valley of glen coe glenn coe is a legendary place   in scottish history as it was here that  an infamous massacre took place in 1692   when the mcdonald clan were murdered  in their beds by the campbells the shape of this valley sheds light on the way  loch ness was made if you could actually drain   the water out of loch ness what you'd actually  end up with is a valley with this sort of shape   and looking down glencoe you can  see it's a very very steep sided   flat bottom valley and it's basically been  created by glaciers repeatedly flying down   the valley eroding it and basically gouging out  what was originally a v-shaped valley and turning   into an over-deepened u-shaped valley glaciers  are extremely efficient at eroding the landscape   they pick up vast amounts of rock debris which  is carried along at the base of the glacier   with the weight of millions of tons of ice on top  of it this rock debris grinds away the bedrock   like sandpaper scouring and deepening  the valleys to a characteristic u-shape across scotland there are hundreds of  valleys with this distinctive u-shape   bearing witness to the huge number of  glaciers which once covered this whole region at loch ness underwater mapping has  revealed that the lock has this signature u-shape   it's flat bottomed with very steep sides in  some places only 50 feet from the shoreline   the water is over 500 feet deep further  proof that loch ness was made by a glacier there was already a long river valley  which had formed along the line of   weakness created by the shattered  rocks along the great glen fault   then during the last ice age a  giant glacier flowed down the valley   slowly carving out loch ness as ice flows down  it it scours it out deepens it and over over   a series of glaciations it deepens it to the  extent that it's now you know a lock 750 feet deep the investigation is now  faced with two final questions   how did loch ness fill up with fresh water  and what keeps it full loose rock and boulders   found on a huge ridge 250 feet high at the  head of the lock could provide the answer the immediately obvious thing about these large  rocks is that they're extremely smooth and   well-rounded and that indicates that they've been  transported by by water they're also very large   this is very heavy so you need a lot of energy so  that tells you that you've got a lot of melt water   that's carried it and then subsequently dumped  it where we are now this evidence combined with   discoveries about climate change shows what  happened here about ten 000 years ago global   temperatures rose rapidly the ice began to melt  and the glaciers retreated glasses down there   would have been eroding loch ness bringing up  large amounts of sediment and that sediment is   then being transported in this direction by the  by the flowing ice and also by flowing melt water as the ice melted a huge river formed under the  loch ness glacier carrying with it vast amounts   of rock debris and then what we've got here  what we're standing on is it affect the zone   where the glacier is now dumping that sediment   millions of tons of rocks created an enormous plug  which dammed the river and stopped the water from   escaping as the ice melted the valley filled  up finally making the lake we know as loch ness loch ness is only 10 000 years old but the  investigation into its history has revealed   an amazing story old red sandstone rocks  show that scotland and the us were once   joined together the shape of loch ness  is controlled by the great glenn fault   formed when scotland and america crashed  into england more than 400 million years ago   fossilized dinosaur footprints placed loch ness  near the equator during the jurassic period   lava flows reveal that massive volcanic  eruptions 60 million years ago began the   separation of scotland in america and the  profile of loch ness proves that it was   carved out by glaciers ten thousand years ago  finally creating the loch ness we know today but what of the loch ness monster the  iconic image is now known to be a fake   but is there any way that the mythical  beast could be a descendant of the dinosaurs   we have two geological facts that tell us that  bach ness could not be inhabited by a dinosaur   one is the dinosaurs died a long long long time  ago and the lock itself geologically is very young   dinosaurs went extinct 65 million years  ago so 65 million years to 10 000 years   it's a long time distance and there is  no chance at all that you would have   preserved in this lock an ancient monster from  times millions of years ago the lock's too young so the geological evidence proves  that loch ness could not be home   to a dinosaur that somehow survived there since  the jurassic the awesome geological history   of loch ness has thrown up many mysteries for  science the loch ness monster is not one of them you

Channel: HISTORY

Views: 597,407

Keywords: history, history channel, history shows, history channel shows, how the earth was made, history how the earth was made, how the earth was made show, how the earth was made full episodes, how the earth was made clips, How the Earth Was Made season 1 episode 4, How the Earth Was Made se1 ep4, How the Earth Was Made s1 e4, How the Earth Was Made s01, How the Earth Was Made 1X4, How the earth was made series, history channel full episodes, Mysteries, Loch Ness Uncovered, Loch

Id: 7ZVT1yeR79w

Length: 45min 13sec (2713 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 29 2020