1964 Alaska Earthquake

This video adapted from the Valdez Museum & Historical Archive, explores what happened during the Great Alaska Earthquake of 1964 through original footage, first-person accounts, and animations illustrating plate tectonics.

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Alaska Tsunami

In this video adapted from Alaska Sea Grant, discover why multiple tsunamis resulted from the Great Alaska Earthquake of 1964.

Birth of a Tsunami

This video excerpt from NOVA: “Japan’s Killer Quake” shows how an undersea earthquake produces a tsunami.

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Cave Formation: Kane Cave

This video segment adapted from NOVA describes a simple experiment that confirmed the idea that microbes can accelerate the biogeochemical process of cave formation.

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Collecting Data Below the Earth's Surface

This video segment adapted from Discovering Women demonstrates how scientists use sound waves to collect data about the structure of Earth's crust.

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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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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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Earth as a System

This visualization adapted from NASA maps progressive global changes onto a rotating globe. Earth's atmosphere, hydrosphere, geosphere, and biosphere are shown to be dynamic and interconnected.

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Earthquake! When Plates Collide

This video excerpt from NOVA explains the concept of plate tectonics and how it causes earthquakes.

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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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Explore Alaska's Volcanoes

In this interactive activity adapted from the University of Alaska, explore four of Alaska's many volcanoes using photographs, computer simulations, and three kinds of satellite images.

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: 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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Health Risks of the BP Oil Spill

In this video segment adapted from Need to Know, learn about the possible short- and long-term health risks for workers involved in cleaning up the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

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Karst Topography and Mammoth Cave

This video from KET shows karst topography in the Mammoth Cave region of Kentucky, illustrating how caverns and sinkholes are formed from water dissolving limestone underground.

Lava Sampling on Kilauea Volcano, Hawaiʻi

In this video segment adapted from NOVA, scientist Mike Garcia draws lava samples at the foot of the active Kilauea volcano to see if it is related to its neighboring volcano, Mauna Loa.

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Making a Seismometer

In this video segment adapted from ZOOM, cast members make a seismometer and experiment with different ways to make it register movement.

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