GeologyRocks

About the author

Jon
Imperial College London

"How the Earth was Made" is a 13 episode series, each an hour long, that examines a number of different aspects of geology. The episodes are: "San Andreas Fault", "The Deepest Place on Earth", "Krakatoa", "Loch Ness", "New York", "Driest Place on Earth", "Great Lakes Yellowstone", "Tsunami", "Asteroids", "Iceland", "Hawaii", and "The Alps". Each episode is presented as a "mystery" that is then explored using computer generated graphics, interviews with geologists and live footage. This review will look at the series as a whole then look at a few of the episodes in more detail. The series is made by the History Channel and as such is very "American", with a deep-voiced, American narrator, dramatic music throughout, and lots of high-drama.

Overall, the series is a worthy way of filling the dark winter evenings when you can't get out into the field. The series is not particularly ground-breaking in terms of both content and style, but is enjoyable to watch. There are a few things, however, that reduce its appeal. Firstly, the framework of all the episodes is a "mystery that has to be solved". I personally dislike this. I think it presents a distorted view of how science works. Moreover, at times it confuses the chronology of how discoveries were made. For example, "The Deepest Place on Earth" looks at the formation of the Mariana Trench. Obviously, this episode includes a lot of plate tectonics and how the theory came about, except it's in the wrong order! Because the episode concentrates on the Mariana and the "mystery" of how it was formed, the idea of subduction is presented first. This gives the impression that the idea for subduction came about first, followed by the idea of sea-floor spreading. Whilst this is not necessarily a problem (after all a lot of textbooks present ideas similarly to provide a better narrative) for a more knowledgeable viewer, I feel someone who knows little about the subject could easily become confused and have a distorted view of how modern theories and ideas came about. It can also lead to a very odd chain of reasoning, where modern "clues" are juxtaposed against very old "clues". Watch the episode on the Alps and you'll see what I mean.

The possible confusion is made less by short summaries that occur three or four times an episode, which present the "evidence" and "clues" found so far. Whilst I personally find the use of the word "clues" annoying, the mini-summaries do provide the viewer with a respite and I think are a very nice idea.

A few episodes also cross the line between education-style documentary and presenting-new-research-style documentary. Restricting the series to well-founded science and hence casting this series as an educational experience would be better in my opinion.

Finally, because each episode is self-contained, there is a lot of repetition. This may only be apparent if you watch episodes back-to-back, however. For example plate tectonics is explained in a number of episodes. However, more detail on a particular aspect is presented where necessary - it isn't simply the same section repeated verbatim - which is certainly a good thing. A few episodes caught my attention more than others. In particular, the "Loch Ness" episode, particularly because it contained a former lecturer of mine at Edinburgh University, Professor John Underhill, using a tank filled with sand and flour to demonstrate the formation of thrust faults - he gets very excited when the thrust faults do appear. This is much more preferable to the park ranger used in places on the Yellowstone episode who has a very bad TV manner and comes across as rather bored! The "Loch Ness" episode explores the "mystery" of how Loch Ness was formed and therefore covers a lot of the history of Scotland, including the dinosaur footprints on Skye and the closure of the Iapetus ocean. I found this, the "New York" and the "Alps" episodes very good as they contained what I call "proper geology", rather than the "geology" you normally see on television which consists of earthquakes, volcanoes, landslides and tsunamis. The rest of the episodes however do follow the more dramatic aspects of the Earth Sciences.

This series has a lot going for it. There are some excellent episodes that are not the usual "exciting" geology you normally see on television. With these episodes you can see past the annoying geological "mystery" presentation style, the overly dramatic music, the deep-voiced narrator, and actually learn something new - even if it is at a basic level. The other episodes are somewhat more formulaic, concentrating on dramatic geological events, such as volcanoes, earthquakes and asteroid impacts. Whilst interesting, there is nothing particularly new or novel in these episodes. There are a few scientific mistakes here and there (limestone is not the same as chalk for example), but these do not detract from the series as a whole. This series would make a worthwhile gift for any rockhound you know - they won't get too annoyed with the basic level and overly dramatic presentation - promise.

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