Aging Diamonds?

In this video from Nature, geological detectives use ancient diamonds to learn more about Earth's inner layers.

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Caves: Extreme Conditions for Life

This video segment adapted from NOVA raises the provocative idea that if life can exist in the most extreme environments on Earth — such as in dark, toxic caves — then perhaps living things can also survive in harsh environments on other planets.

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Climate Change Impacts Alaska Glaciers

This video adapted from KTOO takes a look at Earth's warming and cooling cycles and the current atypical trend of warming that is impacting the glaciers in Alaska's Inside Passage.

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Comets Bombard the Early Earth

Visualize how comets carrying chemicals necessary for life could have made their way to Earth billions of years ago in this video segment adapted from NOVA.

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Comets Deliver Amino Acids to Earth

Amino acids, essential ingredients for life, may have been delivered to Earth by comets billions of years ago, as visualized in this video segment adapted from NOVA.

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Dating Lava Flows on Mauna Loa Volcano, Hawaiʻi

In this video segment adapted from NOVA, scientists search for carbonized remains of plants preserved in lava flows to find out how long it has taken rain forests on Hawaiʻi to regenerate after a volcanic eruption.

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Deep-Sea Vents and Life's Origins

Deep-sea vents are home to life forms that do not rely on the Sun's energy. They depend instead on energy from volcanoes on the ocean floor. This video segment adapted from NOVA hypothesizes that life on Earth may have begun in this extreme environment.

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Deep Time

In this video a Penn State professor refers to National Park canyons carved out by water and wind as he explains “deep time” - the notion that the earth is billions of years old; another professor states how the theory of evolution is supported by evidence of an ancient Earth recorded in rocks.

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Diatoms Measure Climate Change

In this video segment adapted from NOVA: "Becoming Human," learn what the analysis of fossilized microscopic algae in sediment tells us about rapid changes in climate in Africa's past.

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Drilling to Antarctica’s Rock Core

In this video adapted from ANDRILL, find out how geoscientists get through more than a dozen football fields of ice and water in order to study the rock and sediment beneath Antarctica.

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Earthquake Prediction

This video segment adapted from NOVA tells the tragic story of two Japanese seismologists who disagreed about the threat of earthquakes in the early twentieth century. Today, seismologists in California offer residents a probability of risk that an earthquake might occur.

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Earthquakes: Los Angeles

In this video segment adapted from NOVA, animations are used to show how the hills around Los Angeles were formed by earthquakes at small thrust faults that extend outward from the larger San Andreas fault.

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Earthquakes: The Prehistoric Record

In this video segment adapted from NOVA, a geologist digs a trench along the San Andreas Fault to reveal three thousand years of earthquake history. Information from the layers of sediment may help geologists to predict earthquakes.

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The Falls of the Ohio

This video from KET examines one of the largest exposed fossil beds in the world, found at the Falls of the Ohio River, near Louisville, Kentucky.

Field Research on Glacial Change

In this video segment produced by ThinkTV, learn how scientists take measurements in the field to gain an overall understanding of changes in local water supplies, and how they may relate to changes in the mass of nearby glaciers.

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Geology of Death Valley

This video segment from NatureScene examines the landforms of Death Valley and how they came to be.

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Geology of North Dakota Badlands

See how the geology of the North Dakota badlands has changed over time in this video segment from NatureScene, featuring the landscape at Theodore Roosevelt National Park.

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The Grand Canyon: Ancient Mountains

This video segment adapted from NOVA features the twisted and melted forms of the Grand Canyon's oldest rocks, the 1.7-billion-year-old Vishnu Schist.

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The Grand Canyon: Evidence of Earth's Past

In this video segment adapted from NOVA, a fossil found among the Grand Canyon's rock layers reveals the existence of a shallow sea that once covered most of western North America.

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The Grand Canyon: How It Formed

This video segment adapted from NOVA uses animation to present the theory of how the Grand Canyon was formed and features rare footage of a phenomenon known as debris flow.

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The Grand Canyon: Its Youngest Rocks

This video segment adapted from NOVA features the youngest rock formations in the Grand Canyon, lava dams, and how they are subject to the eroding power of water.

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The Grand Canyon: The Top Two Rock Layers

This brief video segment adapted from NOVA uses illustrations and the well-preserved footprints of a small reptile to portray the history of the Grand Canyon's top two rock layers.

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High Altitude Glaciers in the Tropics

While it may seem like a contradiction, glaciers do exist in the tropical latitudes. In this video produced by ThinkTV, learn about tropical glaciers and why scientists are studying them to better understand global climate change.

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How Did Life Emerge Here?

This video segment adapted from NOVA describes the emergence of life on the islands of Hawaiʻi from a barren volcanic platform under the ocean waves to the rich explosion of life that covers the many climate zones of the islands today.

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How The Ohio River Was Formed

This video segment adapted from KET's Where the River Bends demonstrates how climate change and glacier movement during the Ice Ages destroyed the old Teays River and created the Ohio River, Kentucky's northern border.

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Ice-Core Record of Climate

This video excerpt from NOVA: “Extreme Ice” explores how ice cores reveal a relationship between greenhouse gases and climate.

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Inclusion Conclusions

Learn where diamonds originate and how inclusions trapped within diamonds help geologists determine their age in this video segment from Nature.

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Life Before Oxygen

This video segment adapted from Interactive NOVA features evidence of life on Earth before the atmosphere contained a rich supply of oxygen.

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Mammals Get Their Chance

In this video segment adapted from NOVA, animations of an asteroid hitting Earth are used to illustrate this widely accepted theory of dinosaur extinction and the resulting conditions that favored mammals.

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Natural Climate Change in Djibouti, Africa

In this video segment adapted from NOVA, animations are used to illustrate how change in the tilt of Earth's axis produces dramatic climate change over thousands of years.

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Nisqually Glacier at Mount Rainier

Observe the Nisqually Glacier at Mount Rainier in this video segment from NatureScene.

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Plate Tectonics: An Introduction

This video segment adapted from Discovering Women uses animations to introduce the theory of plate tectonics and to explain why earthquakes occur and how continents form.

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Plate Tectonics: Further Evidence

This video segment adapted from A Science Odyssey uses animation and archival footage to provide an overview of the theory of plate tectonics.

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Plate Tectonics: Lake Mead, Nevada

Using animations to illustrate the theory of plate tectonics, this video segment adapted from Discovering Women takes you to Lake Mead, Nevada, to see visual evidence of how plate movement has been stretching the North American continent.

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Plate Tectonics: The Hawaiʻian Archipelago

This video segment adapted from NOVA uses animation to show the relationship between the movement of a tectonic plate and whether volcanoes on the Hawaiian Islands are active or dormant.

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Plate Tectonics: The Scientist Behind the Theory

This video segment adapted from A Science Odyssey profiles Alfred Wegener, the scientist who first proposed the theory of continental drift. Initially criticized, his theory was accepted after further evidence revealed the existence of tectonic plates and showed that these plates move.

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Secrets in the Salt

This video segment adapted from NOVA scienceNOW describes a team of scientists searching for evidence of ancient life within a salt deposit that formed 250 million years ago.

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T. Rex Blood?

Learn about the surprising finding of preserved soft tissue in dinosaur fossils—including possible blood vessels and red blood cells—in this video segment adapted from NOVA scienceNOW.

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Tropical Ice Cores Measure Climate

In this video segment adapted from NOVA scienceNOW, glaciologist Lonnie Thompson shows how glacial ice cores from the tropics track centuries of climate change.

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Water Formation Hypothesis

In this video segment adapted from NOVA, learn about an experiment investigating whether liquid water on Earth could have resulted from a massive planetary impact billions of years ago.

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When Did the First Americans Arrive?

In this video segment adapted from NOVA, recent archeological evidence leads scientists to revise existing theories about human migrations into the Americas around the time of the last ice age.

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