xREL.v3

The.Nature.Of.Things-One_Ocean.Part1.2010.HDTV.XviD-YT

Country     : CA
Language    : English
Network     : CBC
Pack Date   : 2010-03-05
Length      : 00:44:25
Video       : 967 kbps XviD MPEG-4
Audio       : 119 kbps 48KHz 2ch MP3
Resolution  : 624x352
Scan        : Progressive
Framerate   : 29.970
Size        : 350 MB

[ Release Notes ]
Episode 1: Description

We live on a planet that is almost all ocean - a water planet that is
unique among the cosmos.
The ocean is what transformed the Earth into the livable, blue planet
it is today. However, in the earth's earliest history there was no ocean
it was a red-hot planet of molten magma flashing through space.
Where did all this water come from and how has the ocean shaped this
planet over the last 4 billion years? The first episode in the One
Ocean series, The Birth of an Ocean, reveals the transformative power
of the ocean on this planet   and how the ocean drives everything on
the Earth - from our temperate climate, to the air we breath to the
land we walk on. No living creature could be here today if this
dramatic event had never taken place.
The ocean changed our atmosphere by slowly filling it with life-giving
oxygen. Peter Ward, a paleontologist with the University of Washington,
takes us to Shark Bay in Western Australia to discover stromatolites
an incredible bacterial formation which helped fill the ocean and later
the atmosphere with oxygen.
Oxygen would change everything by allowing multi-cellular life to evolve
and then flourish in the watery depths. The Birth of an Ocean explores
how a deadly chain of events was put into motion that caused oxygen to
all but disappear from the ocean and atmosphere, launching a mass
greenhouse extinction. As it turns out, most of the mass extinctions
that have occurred were not caused by a massive asteroid, but by a tiny
bacterium!
The story of the ocean is the story of the beginning of life on the
planet, mass extinctions and astonishing survival in one of the most
beautiful and mysterious parts of the planet. One of the most astonishing
stories of endurance is that of the nautulis - a 500 million year old
living fossil - an incredible species that managed to survive all of the
mass extinctions. It's an incredible story of survival but what are the
adaptations and selective advantages that have allowed the nautilus to
survive for so very long?
The Birth of an Ocean joins paleontologist Ted Daeschler as he reveals
the secrets of the fossil Tiktaalik, the critical transitional species
that first crawled out of the ocean and onto land. We see just how much
of our own anatomy we share with this amazing creature.
Ted Daeschler  We're looking at Tiktaalik, we're looking at an animal
that's really at the base of the branch of the tree of life that leads
to all limbed animals, and we're a limbed animal.
Ultimately The Birth of an Ocean reveals that the history of the ocean
is our own history  and that today we are just beginning to understand
its complexity and the immense influence it has on the planet and our
own survival.
The series One Ocean is produced by CBC's the nature of things and
Merit Motion Pictures, in association with National Geographic Channels
International. The Birth of an Ocean is directed and written by Mike
Downie and produced by Tina Verma. The Series Producer is Caroline
Underwood and the Executive Producer is Michael Allder.
URL: http://oneocean.cbc.ca/

Yours truly