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Eons
When the Earth Had Supermountains
Season 8
Episode 15
Supermountains are so ridiculously enormous that, as far as we know, they’ve only ever formed twice, far back in deep time, and they lasted for just a small fraction of our planet’s history. And both of the times when Earth had supermountains seem to coincide with some of the most profound evolutionary shifts in the history of life.
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25:37
The first saber-teeth and tusks evolve in the Late Permian and our ancestors, the cynodonts, appear.
25:37
An extinction in the Middle Permian decimates life, from a fossil reef to our ancient relatives.
25:37
The first herbivorous vertebrates evolve on the side of the amniote family tree leading to mammals.
25:37
Seed plants and amniotes adapt to dry climates, helping them thrive on Pangea in the Permian Period.
9:11
How did Homotherium evolve to be so successful? The answer may lie in the rise of the Tibetan plate.
10:16
The mystery of what non-flying dinosaurs were doing with their feathered wings has a new hypothesis.
11:45
What did ancient people once know about these bizarre megafauna that we’ve since forgotten?
7:44
5,700 years ago, woolly mammoths crossed a remote tundra island off Alaska.
9:48
Why did vertebrates conquer both the land and the air before the depths of the sea?
8:27
Long-extinct dinosaurs may still haunt us—possibly driving us to age faster than any vertebrate.
10:05
500+ pterosaur fossils found at Solnhofen may be hiding a dark secret distorting our view of them.