Topic: Dynamic Earth

Anatomy of a Tsunami
Using visual models and other graphics, this interactive activity from NOVA Online reveals details of the December 26, 2004 tsunami that collided with coasts around the Indian Ocean.

Antarctica: A Challenging Work Day
What happens when the ground under your feet is ice and it's moving? This video segment adapted from NOVA features some of the dangers faced by scientists conducting research in Antarctica.

Antarctic Ice Movement: Part II
Within Antarctic ice sheets are fast-moving streams of ice. This video segment adapted from NOVA hypothesizes about how ice streams are the result of warming at the end of the last ice age.

Avalanche Town
The impact of natural disasters is made vivid in this video segment adapted from NOVA. A small town in Iceland, prepared for recurrent avalanches, is devastated when one takes a new and damaging path.

Cave Formation: Biogeochemical Cycles
This video segment adapted from NOVA chronicles the discoveries that led to a radical new theory in which living organisms, not just geological processes, play an active role in cave formation.

Caves and Karst
This interactive resource adapted from the National Park Service presents the key concepts of cave and karst systems, including how and where they form, different types, and various cave environments.

Chasing Tornadoes
In this video segment adapted from NOVA, scientists are on the hunt for tornadoes. Using Doppler radar, they gather data in the hopes of solving the mystery of how tornadoes form.

Coastal Geological Materials
This interactive resource adapted from the National Park Service describes the different kinds of sediments that make up coastlines, with a focus on the variety in color, size, and sorting.

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.

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.

Deep Time
This interactive timeline from Evolution offers a visual representation of the major geological changes, transformations, and extinction episodes in the 4.6-billion-year history of Earth.

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.

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.

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.

Earth’s Albedo and Global Warming
In this interactive activity adapted from NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey, learn about Earth's albedo (the ratio of reflected vs. incident solar radiation), how pollution alters albedo, and how ice-albedo feedback may accelerate global warming.

Earth's Cryosphere: The Arctic
In this video segment adapted from NASA, take a tour of the cryosphere in North America and the Arctic using satellite imagery.

Earth System: Ice and Global Warming
This video segment adapted from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center explains ice's role in the Earth system, highlighting the delicate balance that could be upset with a continued rise in temperature due to climate change.

Fastest Glacier
In this video segment adapted from NOVA scienceNOW, scientists in western Greenland explain how a glacier there is shrinking and moving faster due to increased melting.

Glaciers
Featuring images of glacier formations, this interactive resource adapted from the National Park Service explains what glaciers are, where they are found, how they form, and how they move.

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.

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.

Great Ocean Conveyor Belt: Part I
This image from GRID-Arendal depicts the major circulation pattern of the ocean, illustrating interactions between temperature, salinity, and depth.

A Hole in the Sky
This video segment adapted from Interactive NOVA profiles two scientists who were surprised in 1984 to discover a hole in our atmosphere's ozone layer as big as the United States.

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.

How Do Tornadoes Form?
In this video segment adapted from NOVA, scientists use computer simulations to explore the question of how supercell thunderstorms produce tornadoes.

Ice Shelf and Ice Sheet Simulation
In this interactive activity adapted from Texas A&M University, a block of melting ice simulates ice shelves and ice sheets and their differing effects on global sea level.

Life Before Oxygen
This Interactive NOVA: "Earth" video segment looks at ancient organisms that lived anaerobically, the origins of photosynthesis, and the new forms of life this process made possible.

Mountain Maker, Earth Shaker
This interactive activity adapted from A Science Odyssey Web site helps you visualize different types of plate tectonic activity and shows the impact this activity has on Earth's surface.

Mount Pinatubo: The Aftermath of a Volcanic Eruption
This video segment adapted from NOVA features footage of the aftermath of the 1991 Mt. Pinatubo eruption in the Philippines, including falling ash and mud flows.

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.

Once and Future Tsunamis
In this interactive world map from NOVA Online explore nine key tsunamis dating from 3.5 billion years ago and discover what experts have learned from studying them.

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.

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.

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.

Rock Cycle Animation
This visualization of the rock cycle from McDougal Littell/TERC illustrates common rock-forming processes such as crystallization, erosion, and metamorphism.

Sandy Coasts
This interactive resource adapted from the National Park Service profiles sandy coast environments and describes various features of sandy beach environments.

Seismic Signals
In this interactive activity from NOVA Online, you can see the four primary types of earthquakes produced by volcanoes and the signals each produces on a seismometer.

Tectonic Plates and Plate Boundaries
This interactive activity adapted from NASA features world maps that identify different sections of the Earth's crust called tectonic plates. The locations of different types of plate boundaries are also identified, including convergent, divergent, and transform boundaries.

Virtual Cave
This interactive resource adapted from The Virtual Cave by Dave Bunnell, presents images of various features found in solution caves and includes detailed information on how these features are formed and where they occur.

Visualizing Topography
Explore the topography of a hill, a valley, and a cliff in this interactive activity featuring visualizations of three-dimensional topography in two dimensions. Adapted from Stephen Reynolds' "Visualizing Topography."

Volcanic Features
This interactive resource adapted from the National Park Service illustrates the variety of landforms and features created by volcanoes. Featured are calderas, craters, fumaroles and other geothermal features, igneous rocks, lava flows, lava tubes, and maars.

The Wall of Time
This illustrated timeline from the Lunar and Planetary Institute provides a journey through four-and-a-half billion years of time from the birth of our solar system to its current existence today.