Episode
NOVA: Australia's First 4 Billion Years: Life Explodes
Overview
How did life storm the beaches and dominate planet Earth? Ancient Australian fossils offer clues in "Life Explodes." Half a billion years ago, Australia was still part of the super-continent Gondwana. The oceans were teeming with weird and wonderful animals, but the world above the waves remained an almost lifeless wasteland. All that was about to change, though. Host Richard Smith introduces Earth's forgotten pioneers: the scuttling arthropod armies that invaded the shores and the waves of green revolutionaries whose battle for the light pushed plant life across the face of a barren continent. Evolution continued underwater as well, with armor-plated fish experimenting with teeth, jaws, sex, and lungs. NOVA's prehistoric adventure continues with four-legged animals walking onto dry land—and the planet poised for disaster.
Details
- Series
- NOVA
- Season
- Season 40
- Episode
- Episode 16
- Air date
- 2013-04-17
- Runtime
- 55 min
Episode context
Australia's First 4 Billion Years: Life Explodes is Episode 16 in Season 40 of NOVA. It aired on 2013-04-17. The runtime is 55 min.
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Episode 15: Australia's First 4 Billion Years: Awakening
Hidden in the red hills of western Australia are clues to the mysteries of when the Earth was born, how life first arose, and how it transformed the planet.
Episode 17: Australia's First 4 Billion Years: Monsters
"Monsters" begins Down Under at the dawn of the Age of Dinosaurs. Host Richard Smith comes face-to-face with the previously unknown reptilian rulers of prehistoric Australia. NOVA resurrects the giants that stalked the Great Southern Land and discovers that some of these animals were among the largest ever to have walked the Earth. Others were some of the most dangerous. In the dry desert heart, scientists unearth an ancient inland ocean full of sea monsters. Opal fossils of some of these beasts paint a colorful picture of the exotic seascape, where long-necked plesiosaurs snacked on shelled creatures that grew as large as truck tires. The most fearsome was Kronosaurus, with a skull twice as long as T. rex. But reptiles didn't have the world all to themselves. Mammals like the enigmatic platypus lived alongside them, ready for their moment in the sun.
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