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When I was a kid, I had this globe next to my bed,

And when I couldn't sleep, sometimes I'd turn it on

And just kinda explore the world,

Feel the mountains and the ocean floors,

The country borders, the lakes and seas.

It was all very interesting to me.

And I couldn't help but wonder why it looked this way.

Did it always look like this? Did it once look different?

Why does Madagascar look like somebody chiseled it off of Africa?

For that matter, why does Africa's west coast

Have almost the exact same outline as South America's east coast?

Why is there a ridge on the ocean floor

That follows the same path almost exactly halfway between 'em?

I began to see the world as a bunch of puzzle pieces

That came together to be what it is today.

I didn't know how these things happened.

I didn't know why.

Nobody had ever said anything to me about plate tectonics,

But I inherently knew about it

Because of the hours I spent staring at this globe.

And I think this might have been

One of those formative experiences for me,

Just made me think differently about the Earth and geology.

And later when I did learn about plate tectonics

And the billions of years that it's been going on,

Well, that only added to the fascination.

A few years back, I traveled to Sedona, Arizona.

I found myself marveling at the rock formations

And pondering the millions of years of wind

It took to carve that out, just one grain of sand at a time.

People talk about Sedona being a spiritual place.

But I can't even argue with that

Because it forces you to think on unfathomable timescales,

And it kinda breaks your brain.

While at the same time, in volcanic areas around the world,

New rock is produced every day in sudden and violent outbursts.

Rock that later becomes fertile soil and explodes with life.

We live on an ancient planet that's constantly remaking itself,

And that's a concept I've always wanted to explore.

So somewhere along the way, an idea got embedded in my brain.

What if instead of talking about it,

I actually went to the places that best illustrated that?

What could I learn? What kind of story would that tell?

What if I traveled to the oldest and newest places on planet Earth?

This is my producer, Cooper,

And I'm about to wreck his world.

This is the face of someone

Who just wasted three months of his life.

Three months that he had spent planning

A very complicated trip to Australia.

Because in 2014, it was reported

That researchers had found zircon crystals

In the Jack Hills of Australia

Dating back to 4.4 billion years old,

Making these the oldest rocks on planet Earth.

There was just one catch.

These crystals are literally microscopic.

And we had certain parameters with this project.

One, it has to be rock that I can stand on.

That's the gag here.

I stand on the oldest and newest rocks.

Two, it has to be a natural formation,

Not behind a case in some museum somewhere.

That's too easy.

And too hard – I'd probably get arrested.

And three, it has to originate from Earth

And be the result of some geologic process.

So, some meteorite fragment that's as old as the solar system,

That doesn't count.

Now, I knew that the zircons were too small to stand on,

But I assumed the rocks that they were found in

Would be just as old, right?

Right?

So in 2023, we made preparations

To visit the Jack Hills in Western Australia,

Which is super remote, super inhospitable, not near a road.

This was gonna require working with an outfitter and a guide.

We needed satellite phone. This was a whole thing.

And just to be thorough,

I thought I could interview the geologist

A geologist from UC Boulder named Dr. Steven Mojzsis.

And amazingly, he responded.

He says the Jack Hills zircons

Are the oldest minerals on Earth.

While it is true that they're upwards of 4.38 billion years old,

They're weathered from older rocks as sedimentary detritus,

And a younger assemblage that occupied a sedimentary basin.

- He's speaking like a scientist here. - Right, right.

- Around 3.3 billion years ago. - Right.

So the rock itself is 3.3 billion years.

Yeah, that's what I was reading.

Yeah. So he said that's—

That is still a long time ago, but not the oldest place on Earth.

...Yeah.

What I was asking him was like, is it Pilbara or Jack Hills?

- And he was like, neither. - Kinda.

Yeah, we were looking in the wrong place.

According to Dr. Mojzsis,

The actual place that we're looking for was called

The Acasta Gneiss Complex in far north Canada.

So instead of going down here,

We are actually needing to go way up here.

It's not the same place.

And unlike the Jack Hills,

Where you can just kinda drive most of the way out to it,

The Acasta Gneiss Complex

Is in the middle of absolute nowhere.

There are no roads for hundreds of kilometers,

And the landscape is insane.

It's on the edge of a lake,

But the area is dotted with literally thousands of lakes.

The only defining feature is an island in the middle of it

That kinda looks a little bit like Snoopy.

In fact, the geologists call it "Snoopy Island".

I cannot tell you how many hours I spent

Scouring the maps looking for Snoopy Island.

It was like a hellish geological version of Where's Waldo.

So our plans had to change. Drastically.

And since it was approaching fall,

The temperatures in the area

Were already dipping into fairly dangerous territory, so...

We were gonna have to wait another year.

This was not the last thing that went wrong.

So while Cooper began looking

Into how exactly we get to this new location,

I began considering the "newest" rocks on Earth.

I'll be honest, this choice was always a bit arbitrary

Because technically new land is being created all the time

In volcanic hotspots around the world,

Of which there are currently 46,

According to the Smithsonian's Global Volcanism Program.

And there's no shortage of young land masses

Created by these volcanic hotspots around the world,

Any of which would work, but...

When it came down to it, one stood out amongst all the rest:

The Big Island of Hawaii.

Not only is the Big Island only half a million years old,

It's almost always erupting.

Plus it's a US state.

So there was no language barrier, no currency exchange.

There's an infrastructure and a national park right there,

And besides, it's freaking Hawaii. Who wouldn't want to go there?

So, Hawaii it would be.

With our locations chosen, the team went to work

Planning out our epic adventure in 2023.

Nothing was gonna stop us this time.

In the summer of 2023,

Just as we started finalizing our plans,

A massive wave of wildfires swept across Canada.

The smoke from these fires drifted over the northern United States,

Blanketing many major US cities.

It quickly became international news.

Just devastating fires

That are clearly linked to human-caused climate change.

But the scale of the human impact in Canada

Is quite concerning.

There's many fires burning at once,

And some of them are further north than we would typically expect.

So more so into the tundra, which is very uncommon.

And right in the middle of it was the town of Yellowknife,

Which was the closest town to the outcrop

And where we were planning to stay.

It also was the home

Of the Northwest Territories Geological Survey,

Who had helped us out tremendously with our planning.

All of our plans were on hold

As we waited for the fires to subside.

But that didn't happen.

In fact, it only got worse.

By mid-August, two major fires had reached

The outskirts of Yellowknife, and the order was given to evacuate.

My contacts at the Geological Survey suddenly became unavailable

As they and the other 20,000 people in Yellowknife

Fled for their lives.

Over the next couple of weeks,

Through a combination of human intervention

And just dumb luck, the winds changed,

The fires were diverted, and the town was saved.

But Yellowknife was pretty much a ghost town at that point.

It would take months for the residents to trickle back in

And for the town to become functional again.

And by that point,

Our opportunity was pretty much gone.

By the way, you might remember that in 2023,

Hawaii suffered through some devastating wildfires,

Especially on the island of Maui,

Where 102 people died in the town of Lahaina.

So yeah, both places we wanted to go to were on fire.

In the spring of 2024, one of my contacts

From the Northwest Territories Geological Survey

Put me in touch with this guy.

This is Jesse Reimink, a geologist from Penn State

And co-host of the PlanetGeo Podcast

And just happens to be one of the world's top experts

In the Acasta Gneiss Complex.

And it just so happened

That he was planning another trip in July

With this guy. This is Mike Ackerson.

He's a geologist with the Smithsonian Institution,

Who's leading a team of researchers, including Jesse,

To study the outcrop.

And to our utter shock and surprise,

They invited us to join them.

This... was actually happening.

After three years of missteps and natural disasters,

We had just a few weeks to plan the journey of a lifetime.

We'll be flying from Dallas to Denver to Calgary

To Yellowknife in the Northwest Territories.

Then we'll have to charter a float plane

To fly out to the outcrop, for a total of four flights

And 4,500 kilometers – 3000 miles.

With me will be Cooper, who somehow didn't leave the project

After the Australian mishap.

We've got our boarding tickets,

Which I printed out because I have flight anxiety,

And my passport, and they have to be in my hands

The entire time or I lose my mind.

Hi, I'm Cooper, field producer.

Cooper, what are you hoping to get out of this trip?

Outside of just good footage and stuff?

Paid!

I don't know, the sense of adventure.

I think it's really cool in the fact that we're going to

...such a unique space.

I feel like it's kinda like going to the Moon on Earth

Or like the bottom of the ocean.

It's like the nth degree of something, you know?

And he's bringing along Kyle,

Our director of photography and cameraman.

Kyle's got plenty of travel documentary experience,

And we've worked on several projects with him in the past.

Well, it's so great to go somewhere

For that... exploratory purpose.

To be there with the Smithsonian.

- But this is like... - This is out there.

Yeah. I was actually thinking, you were talking about

Getting like a guide through a city or something like that.

We're getting guides through time.

Yeah.

Like the geologists are like gonna guide us

Through the history of the Earth.

In the oldest place that exists on planet Earth.

I mean, like...

I'm kinda having trouble even processing that sometimes.

You should travel with the best.

Oh, that is hot!

Scalding.

This is where I flip my shit!

Oh, hi. Welcome to Canada.

- What time is it? - It's 11:30.

11:30, sun's still out. Here we go!

Welcome to Yellowknife.

It's 1 am.

Over the last 36 hours,

I've been traveling for about 25 of those hours?

Counting the vacation that I had before this.

So, I'm pretty much spent.

Completely bloody exhausted.

But, I'm glad to be here,

And it's been a hell of a day.

One thing that stood out as we were flying

From Calgary to Yellowknife

On a prop engine plane, which was cool,

Was that at one point,

I thought that we were flying into fog.

Like, it looked like low lying fog,

Like you just couldn't see the ground anymore.

And then we wound up flying through it,

And it was only then that I could smell the smoke.

And I realized, oh...

That's not fog, that's smoke.

Those are wildfires.

I spotted two on my side of the plane.

Cooper spotted he said up to seven or eight

On his side of the plane.

This was the very thing

That kept us from coming here last year,

And they're still happening?

I'm not gonna make this about climate change.

I'm not, I'm not gonna make this about climate change.

But today was a really long day.

Tomorrow's gonna be a little bit lighter.

We're just kind of exploring Yellowknife.

So I'm gonna close these blackout curtains

That are clearly required in this town

And get myself some sleep.

Our first day in Yellowknife

Was really all about orienting ourselves

And locking down the plans for the rest of the trip.

Not to mention trying poutine for the first time

And eating the biggest egg roll on the planet.

Also, maybe the hottest egg roll on the planet.

Yellowknife sits at the top of the Great Slave Lake,

And chances are, if you've heard of it,

It's from the show Ice Road Truckers,

Which as somebody who's lived his whole life in Texas,

The idea that it gets so cold that you can drive on top of a lake

Is insane to me.

Even ice skating on top of a lake is insane to me.

But that's in the winter.

And this is July, and it's actually kinda balmy.

Wave hi, boys.

So we're going down to Old Town, Yellowknife,

Which is right by the bay, which as we get closer,

The temperature has dropped 15 degrees, you think?

- Yep, I'd say that. - It's...

- Like a microclimate. - It's super nice here.

I wish we were hanging out here the whole time.

In the summer months,

Instead of catering to Ice Road Truckers,

The main attraction here is hunting and fishing

And just the beauty of Old Town Yellowknife.

And there are many places to fish up here.

On the flight in,

I was just mesmerized by the landscape,

Watching the fields and forests around Calgary

Slowly change into the endless vista of rock

Dotted by countless thousands of lakes.

Like I'd seen it on maps, but it still hadn't prepared me

For what it was like to actually see it from a plane.

It was bizarre, even alien-looking to me.

But it was only when I was on the ground in Yellowknife

That it really sunk in.

Everything is rock.

The empty field outside my hotel is just a field of rock.

People don't have yards in front of their house.

They just have rock.

Highways don't have shoulders. It's just rock.

Hey, you wanna have a little garden?

Maybe grow a little squash or strawberries?

Well, you can't 'cause it's all rock!

And I'm not saying "rocks". I'm using the singular on purpose.

It's like the entire area is on top of one giant rock.

It's like somebody just etched a town

Into the top of a giant boulder. Which made me wonder...

What kind of people lived here?

What culture was formed

On top of the oldest rocks in the world?

Luckily there was a place right down the road

Where we could find out.

On the way.

Boom!

About 100 kilometers northwest of Yellowknife

Sits the town of Behchokǫ̀,

The seat of government for the Tłı̨chǫ people.

The Tłı̨chǫ are a First Nations tribe

Whose name translates to "Dogrib",

And in 2005, they negotiated

A landmark treaty with the Canadian government

That gave them full autonomy over their land.

This isn't the Tłı̨chǫ "reservation".

This is the Tłı̨chǫ Nation.

And I had the honor of meeting with one of the people

Dr. John Zoe.

Dr. Zoe was heavily involved in researching and reestablishing

The traditional Tłı̨chǫ place names on their land,

Essentially removing the westernized names

That were brought in by the European settlers

And fur traders and miners

Over the last couple hundred years.

How far back do those go, those names?

Like, you said thousands of years earlier.

- Like do you know specifically? - Yeah.

How far back?

Well, I would say, at the time of giant animals.

And... that's why the first set of place names

Is the oldest, that had to do

With where the larger animals would dwell.

You talking about like mammoths and mastodons?

Well, it's— we just call them large animals.

And one of the things that we got to know is...

That our landscape holds

Probably the oldest rock in the world.

We were debating about what can we do in a community,

So that we don't forget our own history?

And they say, "Well... well go back on the land.

That's the only way to do it."

And so, almost every step we make,

There was a story.

There were old campgrounds.

There's burial sites. And there's place names galore.

Now to a westerner,

All this removing of European influence

Might come off as unnecessary or even vengeful or performative.

But as Dr. Zoe explained, it's a lot more important than that.

Language is very important because...

It takes us back to the source

Of what we're accustomed to.

And we just need to reapply it

So that we continue it in today's modern world,

- Using the original terms. - Mm.

Rather than relying too much

On describing...

Something that cannot be described...

- In your own world. - Mhm.

Except for your own world.

And it's a link back to their oldest ancestors.

The very history of their people can be found in their place names.

By just hearing the name,

You knew it was a place where you could find trout,

Or wood for canoes, or beaver pelts,

Or the right stones for knives and weapons.

These names made it possible

To navigate the vast and insane landscape

Of the Canadian Shield.

On that note, could I get you to say something in your language?

I don't know—

I don't wanna give you something to say necessarily,

But I'd love to hear it.

And it's funny 'cause I'm sitting here

And I'm thinking about, you know, looking at it from above,

How complex all this is,

But when you're...

At— you know, in it...

How do you navigate that?

A lot of it is from memory.

Like through storytelling.

I mean, it makes sense.

Yeah, so it—

Each place name has—

Is really a story of...

- Right. - What's available in that area

And the method of harvesting.

We drove past a lot of burnt out forests

And flew through smoke so thick,

You couldn't hardly even see anything.

Is— You've lived here your whole life, right?

Is that— Has this always been like that?

This is probably the first time.

Really?

That it's gone to the scale of...

The wildfires last summer.

Uh-huh, yeah.

And, was also the first time

That we had to evacuate this community

Since its establishment here in 1904.

This isn't a climate change video.

This isn't a climate change video.

Oh yeah. Soot on the foot.

This is what kept us from going last year.

While Yellowknife was mercifully spared by the wildfires,

Behchokǫ̀ and many living around it weren't so lucky.

Dozens of Tłı̨chǫ citizens

Lost their homes and businesses to the flames

And are still recovering a year later.

This landscape that's seen so much change

Over its billions of years

Is now experiencing changing weather patterns

That's lowered rainfall and increased heat,

Leading to dangerously dry forests

In a landscape of tinder just waiting to go off.

Rocks that were once buried under miles of ice

Now set ablaze,

Filling the sky with a thick layer of smoke

That turn the sunlight a deep hue of orange-red.

It was especially bad on the day we flew to the outcrop.

So while the crew's back there getting our plane ready,

Our tiny float plane,

Just thought I would stand here for a second

And take it all in.

I've been planning this for three years...

And the day's finally here.

I'm not as nervous as I thought I would be.

Although nervous isn't really even the right word.

Just excited to get out there.

I've talked to Jesse and Mike on Zoom many times,

But I've never met them in person.

So it's gonna be kind of like meeting old friends

For the first time.

In areas like this,

Where the communities are few and very far between,

The only way to get around is by float plane.

So we had to weigh ourselves and all of our gear

So that we have the right amount of fuel

To get there, because...

- These are tiny planes. - We're taking on a bunch of gear.

- Hey! - We're traveling pretty light.

Our pilot's name is Sofie, who is a total badass.

She actually rode into work on a bike.

And this plane was old school.

According to Sofie, the plane was made in the 1950s,

And the only thing electronic on it is the radio and the GPS system.

This is 100% manual flying.

For the next two hours. I'll be honest.

I was kinda nervous about this flight.

I don't normally get nervous flying

Because it's kind of a really big deal

When a plane goes down,

And you really don't hear about them that often,

Considering the thousands of flights that take place every day.

So you know how often they happen.

But little private planes like this?

This wouldn't even make the news.

I have no idea how many of these go down.

And the only time they do make the news

Is when some celebrity is on board.

Like, say, a beloved YouTuber.

Also we're taking off and landing in water,

And I've never done that before.

It kind of feels like it would be rough

With it bouncing off the tops of the waves in the water.

But thankfully it was in fact a smooth ride

And more like driving through the sky.

We even rode with the windows cracked.

- Like butter. - Woo!

Gave out a Texas woo.

I was as giddy as a schoolboy

And mesmerized by the alien landscape,

A landscape that was dotted with even more wildfires.

In fact, at one point, we entered a smoke cloud

And briefly lost all visibility.

This is a literal land of fire and ice.

After a couple of hours of flying

And passing by thousands of lakes and streams,

The time had arrived.

As the plane began to circle to find the right angle to land,

I saw it. Snoopy Island.

After spending countless hours

Searching maps for this distinctive island,

There it was, right below me.

It was surreal.

Somewhere down there was the oldest rock on planet Earth.

And I was ready to meet it.

The landing was smooth as butter, by the way.

As we pulled out to the beach – yes, Snoopy Island has a beach –

Jesse and Mike appeared and waded out to the plane

And literally helped pull the plane toward the sand.

They drove a stake in the ground to secure it,

And then Sofie tied it off like a horse at a saloon.

And the jet bridge was one of the worst

I've ever experienced at an airport.

I generally don't wanna get my feet wet

When I'm disembarking. Zero stars.

- Nice to meet you, man. - Good to see you.

- Thanks for having us out. - Oh, of course.

- Oh, of course. - Welcome.

You brought the smoke with you.

Base camp was pretty basic.

Well stocked kitchen tent, work tent, bags of rock collections.

You might be thinking it looks like a lot of stuff

For just a couple of guys.

Well, that's because they actually have

A whole team of people on this expedition,

But that particular day, they were actually out in the field,

So Mike and Jesse stayed back to hang out with us.

So we'll be— We'll go to this outcrop here,

That you can see the cliff,

Then basically past the cliff to the land over there

Is where the oldest part is for sure

That I mapped in my PhD.

Wow, I'm gonna learn so much today.

That's the plan.

- Taking y'all with me! - We all will.

- Be prepared to nerd out. - You know, well...

That's the quote of the day right there.

Yeah, you described yourself on Zoom as...

You're the keeper of the nation's rock collection.

Mhm, yeah, yeah. One of three of 'em, yeah.

We have three people who are all PhD scientists

Whose job it is to ensure that this wealth of information

That's retained in rocks

That people have worked on for decades,

Remains something that people can use.

Which is part of the reason we're out here...

Is to collect some rocks to bring them back to the collections.

I know the bugs are gonna get you.

- I know, well... - Yeah.

Just gonna have to deal with it, I guess, I dunno.

Yep.

Well, as the keeper of the nation's rock collection—

That sounds like something that

Nicholas Cage would be trying to break into at some point.

Yeah, we're right across from the National Archives too.

So I'm always like, "Hmm, I don't know.

If they don't want the Constitution, they could come for the rocks."

Yeah, well...

One of the best things I've heard people talk about rocks

In terms of being a geologist, which is that rocks are like books,

And that you don't really look at a book

And say, "Wow, what a great book."

It's the story inside the book that you care about.

It's the same thing with rocks.

Well, I wanted to give you a chance to talk about

Specifically what you guys are researching right now.

Is there a specific goal for this trip?

Absolutely, yeah.

So, you know, these rocks

That we're about to be standing on

Are the oldest known rocks on the planet.

A lot of the work that Jesse and other people

Have been doing points back in time

To the potential for rocks that are— might be even older.

So we think, based on the geochemical evidence

That Jesse and others have produced,

That there should be rocks

That are older than 4 billion years out here.

And so we're hoping,

If we have an outstanding, amazing success,

We will have discovered rocks that are—

Or at least crystals that are older than 4 billion years out here.

And we only have one data point

From beyond 4 billion years.

So our hope is that we're going to be able to add another data point

And try to compare and contrast how the rocks here

Might have told a different story about the early Earth

Than the rocks that are currently residing

On the other side of the planet.

That's one of our main goals,

Is to try to investigate and hopefully discover something

That's older than 4 billion years old.

But that's a pipe dream.

Chances of success are low,

But the opportunity for human knowledge advancement

Is extremely high, so...

It's the way— that's the place to be.

To accomplish this, they need to bring in somebody

Who had spent extensive time on these rocks

And mapped them thoroughly.

Someone like this guy.

I mean, I'm just...

One of the more recent

Of a long line of people who've worked in these rocks.

I mean, these are famous rocks in geological circles,

Since the late '80s when they were discovered to be old.

And various people have mapped at various scales.

Some people would take this outcrop and produce a map of it.

Some people would map in over 30 square kilometers here

And produce a map of that area.

And what I did was kind of in between those two.

It was this island and the peninsula over there.

- We'll go, we discovered some— - The hook.

The hook one, yep, exactly. We'll go park on those.

Those are the ones that we mapped

As this 4.02 billion year old unit where it starts there,

It ends there, and it goes up into the hill,

And you could map it as a unit.

So that kind of intermediate scale was what my PhD was on.

But there's decades of people who've mapped

This complex, this suite of rocks

In this 50 square kilometer area here.

So this 50 square kilometer area

Is like the oldest spot?

There are parts of it that are the oldest.

This rock you're sitting on is a 3.6 billion year old rock.

So it's not the oldest part, unfortunately.

- Still pretty old. - It's still very—

I mean, there's maybe...

What, I'm gonna make up a number here,

Ten places on Earth that have rocks that old.

So it is one of the oldest rocks on Earth.

- It's not the oldest though. - Yeah.

So, so in this complex,

If you look, all these hills you can see around us,

They'll be rocks ranging from 4 billion years

To 2.9 billion years, are the age of the rocks.

And then they were all metamorphosed

1.9 billion years.

And that's the deformation,

The sort of structural pattern we can see to these rocks.

That was a later feature that squished them together.

Is there a difference between like continental crust

And ocean crust?

Mm, oh, great question.

Or is it just that there's a dip,

And that's where the water goes?

The rocks that we're on are continental crust.

They make up the continents.

They're lighter in terms of density,

And they're functionally more buoyant

Than the oceanic floors,

- Which are a denser rock. - Oh, okay.

So...

Most ocean plateaus are made up of rocks that are denser,

And they're actually— the crust there is much thinner.

- Okay. - It's a couple of kilometers

Versus maybe 40, 50, 60 kilometers below us here.

So these continental crust rocks,

At least now, are rising above the oceans,

And they chemically weather,

And they form the composition of our atmosphere.

They stabilize the atmosphere. They stabilize our ocean chemistry.

They're a really unique feature to Earth

That no other planetary body has.

As we were flying in, and I was looking at it,

And I was like thinking about

All the glacial periods that have happened up here,

And I'm sitting here thinking about how old these rocks are,

And it occurred to me that...

That's like the— a blink of an eye.

And the age of these rocks, that's just nothing!

So the significant thing about the glaciers

Was it— could it have been just that kind of cleared the rocks off

And brought this up to where it's exposed now?

Yeah, I think it's...

It's probably the former, certainly. Probably not the latter.

So the rocks were probably at or near sea level,

Or at, you know, in their current elevation

Relative to the deeper rocks

For a long time, for hundreds of millions of years.

And the glaciers, as you said, are just the most recent thing

- In the last... - Yeah.

Few, tens of thousands of years.

But they cleaned them off, scraped the stuff off,

Exposed them, and—

But these rocks, people have gone around

And tried to understand how did they—

When did they rise to the surface or near surface?

And that was an old phenomenon as well.

So hundreds of millions of years at least

Since these things were deep down.

So they've been kinda just riding high

Right near the surface for...

Several hundred million years to billions of years.

Educate me on cratons.

Cratons.

First of all, am I saying it right?

- Yes, you are. - Okay, good.

If you're English or British school,

- You'd say 'KRAHT-ons', but— - KRAHT-ons.

Yeah, exactly, yeah. If you wanna sound smart.

But 'CRAYT-ons', that's what I say. 'CRAYT-ons', so that's good.

Cratons are the—

You can think of them as the interior of continents.

They're the really stable part.

If you have heard the word 'Canadian Shield'.

- Yeah. - That's a craton.

There's a bit of discussion about what the term 'craton' means,

Because if you look at the Canadian Shield,

It's a vast expanse of stable continent

That hasn't seen much deformation or metamorphism

Or much activity for a very long time.

Not to cratons. They are old, they're stable.

They have a super thick mantle root beneath them

That protects them from later deformation.

So we're all familiar with plate tectonics, right?

That the Earth's crust is made up of different plates

That move and slide around and crash into each other,

Sometimes splitting apart continents, creating oceans,

Sometimes subducting underneath into magma

And melting like Anakin Skywalker, creating mountains and volcanoes.

Well, cratons are formed in the earliest days of Earth.

This was actually known as the Hadean Era

After Hades, the great god of hell.

Everything is boiling hot magma.

But in some places,

Some less dense magma floated to the top

And collected and then cooled in the air,

And this became the first rock.

Eventually, the denser rock around it would cool

And fill out the rest of the continents

And the tectonic plates.

But these earliest rocks were the earliest rocks,

Because they were so buoyant.

So when the plates started smashing into each other,

It was the denser rock that would slide underneath

And melt into the mantle.

And these older, more buoyant rocks, these cratons,

They didn't get sucked under.

They just kind of floated on top of all this for 4 billion years.

It didn't survive unscathed, though.

It definitely evolved over time.

It gets eroded, folded, pressed, smashed up quite a bit,

But it never gets subducted.

There are several ancient cratons around the world,

But the biggest and oldest is the Canadian Shield,

Which also just happened to spend

The last several million years in the glacial zone.

And as the Earth went through several glacial periods,

These mile-high walls of ice scraped away the top soil,

Leaving this endless, expansive rock exposed for the world to see.

And because of this,

Wide swaths of Canada are almost entirely uninhabited

Because there's just no land to develop agriculture on.

But also because of this, it exposed these rocks

And the stories held within them.

I think for me,

Geology... is such a massively diverse field

That it's just about the world around you,

The landscape around you, and you look around.

And it's the same thing, yeah. People have—

You could very easily walk across these rocks

And think, "Oh, those are quite pretty rocks."

But they're some of the oldest rocks in the world.

It has new meaning.

You have to sit down and think about,

What does 4 billion years actually mean?

That's really hard to comprehend.

- Yeah. - And I can't—

I'm not doing it right now,

But when I do comprehend it a little,

You get hints of it, and it's scary.

I mean, it's like, wow, this is unbelievable.

It's a sort of a spiritual— or whatever, you know,

It's some— it has meaning that's—

It's very complicated and a sort of a spiritual experience

To sort of think about time and that scale.

'Cause we try and keep things simple as geologists.

So we always talk about it

In like the first or second decimal place.

We say, "Oh, it's 4.0 billion years."

And that just cheapens it a bit, you know?

We should say it's like...

4 billion is a massive number compared to...

That .1 is 100 million years.

- Exactly, it's insane. - Unfathomable.

So the difference between, you know, this rock,

Which is 3.8, and that one, which is 3.6,

That's 200 million years old. Or 200 million years—

That's 200 million years of difference.

That's an enormous amount of time.

- And we're sitting on— - Wait, wait, wait, wait.

No, wait, so I have to process this.

So, so this rock right here...

Is, what, 300 million years younger than this?

This is younger. This will be three— Well, okay.

This isn't a great outcrop

'cause I haven't dated this particular one.

- But for the sake— - But for the sake of argument.

For the sake of argument, this is 3.8.

Similar rocks to this over there are 3.8 billion years old, 3.75.

This is 3.6.

So that's 150 million years

Of age difference between those two rocks,

And they're just sitting happily

Next together, next to each other right now.

That's like...

...before the dinosaurs.

Well before the dinosaurs.

Well before the dinosaurs.

- That entire space? - Yeah.

- Right there. - Exactly.

It's deeply humbling to sit on a 4 billion year old rock

And think, you know,

My life is a minuscule amount of time

Compared to what this rock has experienced.

These are hallowed ground to geologists.

Like everybody, if in an undergrad degree,

You will probably hear the words "the Acasta Gneiss Complex"

At some point in that degree process.

And so this is a place, I've been here, set up camp

When we're mapping during my PhD

Where a random helicopter came and dropped off a couple geologists

Just because they wanted to look at it for the day,

And they had some helicopter time, and they were swinging by.

So it's a place like that,

That people will land to check it out

Because it is kind of hallowed ground

In a— for geologists.

You think more deeply about things other than rocks

When you're sitting on these rocks.

At least I do, in my own experience.

The actual outcrop is a short boat ride

Across the lake from Snoopy Island,

And in the interest of protecting it,

We've chosen not to reveal its exact location here.

We're headed for those outcrops.

We can see just a—

Just on the other side of the point, just past the point there.

This lake, by the way, is so far from human habitation

That they're able to drink directly from it.

I saw them refilling their water bottles

On our trip back.

Apparently the deeper water tastes better.

I tried it myself. It was delicious.

Oh, and when we arrived, they made a big point to tell us

To tuck our pants into our socks to protect from bugs.

But for some reason, I'm the only one that did it.

Hence the classy look I'm sporting here.

No worries guys, it's not like I'll be on camera or anything.

- I did it! - Pull it tight to that.

- What are we close to? - Close to the old stuff.

- The oldest rocks? - 4.02 billion year old stuff.

We tied off the boat and took a short trek

Along the shore to the oldest rocks.

But first, a quick stop at another impressive formation.

So this is a 3.8 billion year old rock

That has a bunch of veins

That are cross-cutting it, so we know they're younger,

Because you can't cross-cut something

Unless the something was there before.

And so the veins are younger,

Probably 3.6 billion years old.

And it's bounded. Sort of down here,

You can start to see a very deformed rock...

That has this layering to it here.

And this is a, what we call a banded gneiss package.

So G-N-E-I-S-S, gneiss.

Lots of geology puns that go along with that.

Nice!

But this is a gneiss, and this gneiss package

Will continue down the hill as we see,

And there's several different ages of units of rocks

That are smooshed together in this nice package.

So we're kinda going back in time?

We're going back and forth in time.

Because these— again, it's rock layers like this.

It's a 4 billion year old rock, a 3.7 billion year old rock,

A 3.9 billion year old rock, 4.0 billion year old,

3.9, 3.7 billion year old rock, 3.6.

And then they're all squished like that

And sometimes folded over on each other.

So there's a lot of layering in these

'cause they're just squished into oblivion.

But we see stuff like this,

And this is kind of a random alignment of mineral grains,

Which is what you get in a primary rock

That has not been deformed very much.

This stri— These stripes are very rare to get

In igneous rocks as a primary feature.

So this is probably a rock that's been squished.

So do you see this kind of like bending in the rock

- And stuff kind of everywhere? - Yeah. Everywhere.

But this just happens to be super old rock

That that's been done to many, many, many—

Exactly, yep. So it's super old rock.

This is probably either a 3.6

Or a 3.4 billion year old injection that...

That sort of injected itself into this other rock

And crosscuts it.

So we know this is older than this

Because of the crosscutting nature of it.

And then the whole thing's been deformed

1.9 billion years ago,

2.5 billion years ago, multiple times.

This little body has been isolated from deformation

More than the rocks we'll see right down there.

This is like slightly better preserved

Than the ones right down there.

These are some of the more complicated rocks

You're ever going to see.

So, you kind of threw yourself in the deep end here,

- Coming to these rocks. - Yeah.

We were— We've been sitting for days on these rocks

Just asking the same questions.

You are trying to grapple with the scale and the magnitude

- Of the history in these rocks. - Yeah.

It's functionally impossible.

- It's very hard. - To do in the field.

For, you know, trained geologists

With a lot of shared field expertise,

That we're sitting on rocks that we're debating,

What does that structure tell us?

You know what's also amazing about this?

It looks like a boot.

Okay.

It looks like a boot. It's like—

Oh, I see, the outline.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Alright, I got you.

- That's good Texan stuff right there. - Yeah.

Finding cowboy boots everywhere.

I can't get away. You can take the boy outta Texas,

But you can't take the Texas outta—

Oh yeah, it's gotta find one there.

We have this... law,

Law of science that you learn in Geology 101 classes...

Where basically the idea is that the present is the key to the past.

So you can look at things happening today

And trace back... what was happening in the past.

And that law unambiguously breaks down

- You get this far back. - Yeah.

I mean, what we have to try to do with these rocks,

And what Jesse's done a really good job of

Is trying to piece together...

What Earth could have looked like

When we didn't have the ability to go walk around

And hike around in the Cascades and grab a volcanic rock,

And go to Yosemite, and go to Iceland, go to Hawaii.

We do not know what the early Earth looked like,

And the only way

We can even come close to getting there

Is by looking at these rocks.

And now that we had a better understanding

Of what we were looking at, it was time for the main event.

But this rock unit, now you are standing on...

Is the...

4.02 billion year old rock unit.

And it goes from up where your feet are

For about 10 meters down in this direction,

And it continues up into the hill for quite a while.

And you can see, come look at it, and see this same kind of layering.

There's a different chemistry and a different chemical composition

From that rock in a different age,

And it's inter-layered with other rocks of younger eras.

But this is the old one right here.

So kinda the way you just explained the rocks

On the other side over there...

What can we read?

What's the story here that we can read in these rocks?

Ah, it is—

The story is smeared out

When you're looking at it in an outcrop.

The story is really in the geochemistry

And what we can tell in the lab about it.

So we take these rocks back to the lab,

We look at their zircon cargo,

These minerals that are really good at geochronology.

They also record a bunch of geochemistry.

And we can tell something about when the rock—

How the rock was created, how the magma was created,

Where it crystallized in the crust.

And then we can also look at the composition of the rock.

So the chemical recipe for the rock.

And that tells us some key things about how it was created as well.

What environment it formed in, what led to the melting

That produced a magma that created this rock,

Which made these rocks exciting for us

Because the chemical composition of these rocks

Matches very closely to a rock type called Icelandite.

And as you would guess...

- Icelandite occurs in Iceland. - Where's that from

Yeah, exactly.

And so, you know, Iceland's a proto-continent.

These are the oldest rocks we know of, on this area,

And maybe our planet.

And they're— they look like Icelandites.

And, so maybe this is a proto-continent.

Maybe this is how the continent kinda got kickstarted growing.

Proto-continent.

Have to sit with that one for a minute.

- That's wild. - Yeah.

I don't know what else to say. I'm kinda—

You gotta sit and think, sit and think in silence is okay

- On the world's oldest rocks. - Well...

One of the things I was sitting here looking at,

It looks like— it kinda looks like an old man.

Like it's got these deep wrinkles. It's got this...

I mean, some of this I'm sure is lichen that's on top here,

But it's like, it's so— it's got these lines across it.

It looks scarred. It looks weathered.

It looks old.

Deep wrinkle lines. I like that. That's a good description.

But it...

I don't know. It almost makes me kind of—

I'm being— I'm really being like, woo-woo now,

But it's like, it makes me think of like an old grandpa.

Mhm.

An old lovable grandpa

That's been through some shit.

And...

And we're all just kinda living on it.

Yeah, no, you're not off.

That's how when the original discovery was made,

People were walking across these rocks and said,

"Oh wait, these have had a tortured history.

"Much more tortured than rocks over there,

"and rocks over there. So this is a different beast.

Let's date it."

And then they dated it and found

3.964 billion year old rocks around.

So that little bit of— your intuition is exactly right.

This looks old and tortured.

How crazy is it that like literally just a visual thing

Of looking at it is like, "Hey, there's something to this."

- And then it turns out there was. - Yep.

Geology is great because, you know,

We speak about planetary science all the time.

Every time you look at— in a rock, you're seeing a different planet,

A planet that used to exist and no longer does

Because Earth has this long timescale

Of a rock record.

And when we look at exoplanets and other solar systems,

We're getting a snapshot into that planet's life.

And you know, even arguably on our limited sampling of Mars

And no samples of Venus, we're getting kind of snapshots

Of the planetary lifetime.

In Earth, as we go back in time,

We are doing planetary science because we're looking at

A planet that no longer exists.

Listening to Mike and Jesse,

It became clear to me that these are not just old rocks.

These are memories of a previous planet.

Memories that have become scrambled and twisted

As they become unintelligible and nonsensical.

A 4 billion year old puzzle

For people like Mike and Jesse to decipher.

And I could listen to them talk about this all day,

But with our time ticking away

And Sofie waiting for us back at the plane,

There was still one thing left to capture.

After three years of misdirections and close calls,

The time had finally come

To stand on the oldest rocks on planet Earth.

I've been thinking about this trip for a really, really long time.

And I— several— on several occasions,

I sat down and...

Tried to write out my thoughts on the whole thing,

And I stopped myself.

I wanted to actually get here

And feel it and see, be like what I felt.

And now I'm here...

...and it's complicated.

I don't know how I feel.

I don't know that like— you know, I try to stay away

From woo-woo type stuff, but...

I was wondering if I would feel some kind of energy?

Some kind of Earth energy coming off of this?

I don't know, I don't know that I feel that,

But I do feel a weight. I feel...

...a presence.

Again, I'm not trying to make it woo-woo.

I'm not trying to make it out like I'm pick—

It's not— this isn't Stonehenge, you know.

It's not mystical or anything. It's just...

To contemplate, to sit in this spot...

On these rocks that have existed...

For almost a third of the universe?

It's very humbling.

That's not even the right word for it.

Humbling isn't the right word.

It's not just that this has existed for 4 billion years,

Which is itself an incomprehensibly large number...

Because as many people would be quick to point out,

Everything on the Earth has been here for 4.5 billion years.

But, everything gets transformed.

Everything gets reshaped.

Everything gets turned into something else.

Metamorphosed, if you will.

But this hasn't.

This has been here this whole time.

Unchanging.

Actually, it's changed a lot, but fundamentally unchanging.

You know, one of the themes of this video

Is supposed to be like permanence and renewal.

And permanence, or this kind of permanence,

It's not something that we can even...

Experience, certainly can't experience.

Can't even really comprehend, but...

Renewal is something that we can experience.

So maybe let's see what that's all about.

Yeah.

Onto the next thing.

From the smoky skies and ancient granite of northern Canada

To the sun, palm trees, and black sand,

We traveled to the newest place on planet Earth:

The Big Island of Hawaii.

The Big Island of Hawaii is the youngest of the Hawaiian Islands

At around 500,000 years old.

Which, to visualize this, when you put that on a chart

Next to the Acasta Gneiss...

Hawaii's there. It's just a pixel or two, but yeah.

It's younger.

Also, just a quick note

On the actual pronunciation of the word.

I always just said "Hawaii" growing up.

That's how most of us learn it in the US,

But there is an apostrophe in there,

Which in the Hawaiian language indicates a glottal stop.

So it's actually pronounced "Ha-wai-i".

Now, there are some that go a bit further with that

And say "Ha-va-i" with a V sound, but that's kind of a sub-dialect.

All the islands have their own subcultures

With their own dialects,

But the most universally accepted pronunciation,

According to the experts I talked to anyway, is "Ha-wai-i".

So, I'm gonna be using that pronunciation in this video.

There are seven main islands in the Hawaiian island chain,

And they get younger the further down you go,

Ranging in age from 5.2 million years old

To half a million years old on the Big Island,

Whose name is actually Hawai'i,

But because that's also the name of the state,

Most people just call it "the Big Island".

Because it's the big one.

And the Big Island is especially unique

Because out of the 13 climate zones that exist on planet Earth,

Eight of them can be found on the Big Island of Hawaii.

It is literally the most ecologically diverse

Place in the world.

This is due to the unique geology of the island,

Which is dominated by two peaks – Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa –

Which rise up to 4,207 and 4,169 meters respectively.

This causes the trade winds carrying warm, moist air

Up from the northeast to rise up as it hits the mountains.

This cools, condenses, and falls as rain,

Making the east side wet and humid while the west side is drier,

Even desert conditions in some places.

And there are two main population centers on the island,

With Hilo on the east coast and Kailua-Kona on the west coast.

Hilo is larger and serves as the county seat

On the island of Hawai'i,

While Kailua-Kona is more of a tourist destination

That's famous for their coffee.

But as much as I love coffee, we traveled to Hilo

Because of its proximity to Hawaii Volcanoes National Park.

Also, that's where the offices

Of the US Geological Survey are located.

When I said that Hilo is generally

More humid and wet, I wasn't kidding.

In fact, Hilo is considered

The wettest city in the United States.

And just some foreshadowing,

That was totally my experience there.

I was quite moist the whole time.

Which, while that might not be my favorite feeling in the world,

It's made Hilo the most lush and green place

I've ever seen in my life.

The plant life here is spectacular with sky-high palm trees

Alongside wide and sprawling banyan trees

That are such a fixture of the island

That many of them had names.

Outside our hotel, at any given time,

There were people swimming and paddle boarding

And fishing in the lagoon, and families enjoying epic cookouts

Underneath the banyan trees.

It's an island lifestyle

That operates on vibes and community spirit,

Where a sunny day can become a rainstorm and back again

In the span of 15 minutes.

The rain is just part of life here.

The locals call it liquid sunshine.

Okay, we're in Hawaii, and here's where things stand.

Where we stand right now is we're on the island.

We're in Hilo on the Big Island.

We have one interview set up with a geologist.

We have a second one on the way

And a third that we are trying to set up.

The thing that I'm finding is that Canada, I thought,

Would be a million times harder than here

Because it's very remote.

There's no infrastructure out there and all that.

This is Hawaii. It's actually a state.

You don't even have to do a currency exchange.

What I'm finding though is that...

Especially when getting interviews set up,

This is where people live and work.

And right now they have a lot of work to do

Because the volcano is erupting.

So our schedules had to be insanely flexible.

And what we've told everybody is,

"Look, give us three hours of head time, lead time,

And we will come to you. We'll make it happen."

So in the meantime, today...

So this is the first day. This is Friday.

We're gonna be going around Hilo, seeing a little bit of the town.

We do have an interview this afternoon

That I'm really excited about.

But the first things first,

I've gotta get some Sudafed or something

Because my ears have not...

Have not cleared since I got off the plane.

I can barely hear anything outta this ear.

It's not a good time. But we're here.

I'm ready to make the most of it. And let's just see what happens.

Little sea arch back there.

It's not gonna be around forever.

It might fall in our lifetimes.

The island of Hawai'i is of course a volcanic island,

One of the most volcanic hotspots in the world,

Regularly spewing out molten lava from its three active volcanoes,

Kīlauea, Mauna Loa, and Hualālai,

The last of which hasn't erupted since 1801,

But it's still considered active.

Mauna Loa is considered the tallest volcano on Earth

When measured from the sea floor,

And it's the second tallest mountain in the world,

Again, if measured from the sea floor.

It's just bested by its sister mountain Mauna Kea,

A mere 38 meters taller.

And then there's Kīlauea,

One of the most active volcanoes on Earth.

It's been erupting almost nonstop since 1983,

Releasing lava from its central caldera

As well as various rift zones along the southeast of the island.

All of which is to say that if we wanna stand

On the newest rocks in the world,

We've got plenty of options to choose from.

So we set out to find the best spot.

Alright. Here's what we're looking at.

So this is the Hawaii Volcanoes National Park.

According to the geologists and the researchers I talked to,

There's three... pretty good options here for the newest rock.

The first one is actually over here.

Okay.

This is actually Mauna Loa. This isn't Kīlauea.

So Mauna Loa is the second highest mountain on the island,

But it's the highest active volcano in the world.

- So it's up in elevation quite a bit. - Right.

But there's this access road right here.

It's called Mauna Loa Observatory Road.

And in 2022, so two years ago,

A lava flow completely blocked off this road.

So if you're going down that road, you can't miss it.

You literally can't go any further. It's blocked off by lava.

But it's a publicly accessible road. There's a highway right over here.

Anybody can go to it. 100%, this is doable.

- We can do this. - Sure.

And that's two-year-old rock.

- Okay. - Not too bad.

But three months ago...

There was an eruption right here.

This little crack, this little fissure right here.

This is just south of the big crater,

But it's a pretty remote area.

There's a trail that goes right through here,

But it's a six-mile hike, and it's an unmarked trail.

It's not paved. It's not even a smooth trail.

It's over sharp, jagged rocks.

And then from there, we'd have to go off-trail

For at least a mile and a half or so

Over even newer sharper rocks.

- So like 12 miles round trip? - Yes.

- Over sharp rocks. - Over sharp rocks.

And there's no cell phone reception there.

Okay.

And like we're going up a mountain too, on sharp rocks.

Yeah.

With no cell phone reception.

- Carrying gear. - With gear.

Yeah.

So, not the best option.

And we're going off-trail.

- Yeah. - So...

...technically speaking, illegal.

Yeah, so...

So we could get arrested?

- We might get arrested. - We could get arrested.

Small problem.

So we won't get arrested going there.

- Okay. - For the two-year-old rock.

This one, there's all kinds of dangers and issues there.

- Could get arrested or die. - Yeah.

Okay.

There is another option though.

Literally two days before we arrived in Hawaii,

A fissure opened up in what they call

The middle East Rift Zone, near a crater called Nāpau Crater.

It was the first lava flow from Kīlauea in months,

So we got pretty lucky.

It started out as a fairly small eruption

Releasing just enough lava to set the vegetation on fire.

But over the next few days,

It turned into a curtain of lava several meters high

That pooled and flowed over the crater walls

Briefly creating a lava fall, which is like a waterfall from hell.

The fissure expanded into the crater

And would eventually cover two-thirds of it

With a new layer of lava rock.

The question was...

...could I stand on this brand new rock?

To get some answers, I visited the Geology Department

At the University of Hawai'i at Hilo

Where samples of this eruption were being studied.

And we got to sit in on a demonstration.

So I'm kinda gonna take you through the whole process

Of like what our eruption response,

As well as just normal processing looks like

When we have samples.

When we're looking at these samples, we wanna find both glass

But also the crystals to do analyses on.

And so the mineral chemistry and the mineral crystals

Tell us a lot about what's going on

Underneath the magma chamber and underneath the surface.

And so thinking about that chemical zoning,

Thinking about their chemistry,

We really need to actually find the crystals.

And to do that, we have to break down the rock

And sift through and find them.

- Am I doing it right? - Yeah.

UH Hilo is unique

Because their undergraduates actually get to participate

In volcano research right there side by side

With USGS scientists at the Hawaii Volcano Observatory.

Yep. Awesome.

So if people want to come take a look,

Use these, lightly play around, try to find any crystals

That you can, go for it.

So the eruption that's happening right now,

Is that considered Mauna Loa or Kīlauea?

No, that's a Kīlauea eruption, yes.

So, the eruption that happened on Sunday,

It started Sunday night on September 15th,

Started in the middle East Rift Zone of Kīlauea.

And it was kind of between Makaopuhi Crater and Nāpau Crater.

And what happened is a fissure opened up

In— just opened, separated,

Magma flowing out and having fountains.

It's funny 'cause we've been kinda keeping track of all this

- Before we come out here. - Yeah.

And they were like, "Oh, something's erupting."

- Like, oh, yay, you know. - Yay!

But then like, it was kinda like,

"Oh, it's kinda oozing out, whatever."

And then I saw the video where just, "Ksssh!"

Yes!

Like the end of, you know, Revenge of the Sith.

And then it was like, "Oh my god."

End of the world, yeah.

How common is that? Is that like a big deal to get that?

Or is that just like a Tuesday?

- Yeah, just a Tuesday. - Yeah.

Yeah, but I mean, I think it's very cool.

It had a lava waterfall.

- I saw that, yeah. - Yeah.

I've never seen that before.

- Oh, wow. - It was pretty insane, yes.

So like you're...

Oh no, you're sitting at your desk,

And they're like, "Woo-woo-woo. Time to fly out there."

- Yeah, yeah. - Is that how that works?

That's how I see it in my head.

Honestly, kind of, yeah.

It's like the marionettes, like, "Okay, let's go on our own."

And they're like, "Go to work."

Yeah, it kind of is like that.

There's a lot more strategy behind it.

Really?

We have like eruption call down lists

Where we have certain people at certain teams,

What skills they have, and what data sets we need.

And so, you know, higher-ups will get notified.

We have a lot of alarms,

Like both seismic and thermal alarms.

So when an eruption happens, everyone can kinda get notified.

So, so did you get to actually collect the lava,

Or was it already hard, and you're just taking the rock?

No, you actually collect it.

- You're actually collecting it. - Yes, yes.

And wearing the suit and everything?

- Yeah, yeah, so you wear— - I'm so jealous.

But how do they get

Chemical analysis of the rock in one day?

We talked to the department chair, Steve Lundblad, to find out.

Hey, is there science happening in here?

- Perhaps, come on in. - Alright.

- Well, I'm Joe. - Hi Joe, I'm Steve.

- Nice to see you. - Nice to meet you.

So what are we doing here?

Well, right now we're running some samples

On our EDXRF,

Which stands for Energy Dispersive X-ray Fluorescence,

Which why we call it an EDXRF.

Few extra— less syllables.

And yeah, and so what it does is it excites the electrons

In whatever you put in here.

We have some basalt samples that are in there right now.

And what it does is

Each one of the elements gives off characteristic energy.

And so the different peaks represent different elements.

And so at the end of the analysis,

We end up with the chemical composition

Of the material that we put in there.

Okay. So what would be a really bad thing to see?

Like if you did your measurements,

And you got a big spike in something,

It's like, "Oh, no, that could mean..."

So in one regard,

If you're worried about explosive eruptions, right?

The more silica you have,

The more viscous the magma's gonna be,

The more gas it traps, the more likely it might be

To have some sort of explosive thing.

But I think around here,

It's also, if it's really hot fluid magma

That comes out as a lava flow,

It's gonna cover huge areas in a hurry.

So if all of a sudden,

The stuff that comes out is much more fluid

And comes out with a much higher—

At a much higher rate, then there are certain places

Where you clearly don't want to be, right?

Because you're gonna either get run over

Or it's gonna run over trees, which can cause methane explosions

Or, you know, all of these types of things.

So I think some of that situational awareness

Of what's happening at any given time,

In addition to the scientific merit,

Is also just valuable in trying to figure these things out.

And the cool thing about this is that you can get results

Like same day?

Yeah, so for instance, yesterday,

They collected the sample at eight in the morning.

I came in here, Lis brought it down

In her drive into work, we stuck it in the oven

For an hour or so, powdered it, did this.

That process takes 20 minutes or a half an hour.

Ran it in here.

Each sample takes about 20 or 25 minutes.

And by two o'clock we had information

- About what the composition was. - That's so cool.

And this is a rock that was born yesterday.

You can see that it's got a lot of pores in it.

And it's really frothy, and it's not a nice even surface.

And generally our instrument,

Or any instrument that does this type of analysis,

- Doesn't like that. - Okay.

So what it wants, in our finished product

That we put in there, is a pressed pellet.

So this is a pellet from that rock.

And so we've ground up the sample

To a very fine powder,

Pressed it under, in this case, five tons of pressure.

And so we have a very flat surface, a very smooth surface,

And everything is a uniform grain size,

And it's a good density

For kind of other reasons that we care about.

So is that part of the process of what we were looking at

Earlier with the crushing, or is that a whole different thing?

That's related.

What they're gonna do is they're crushing it

To see if they can find mineral crystals in there.

We do crush this a little bit by hand

Before we basically turn it into a powder

- That is super refine. - And that's in a machine.

Yeah, and so that's just—

That's just a big stainless steel,

Essentially ball mill type thing, right,

That's doing that, called a shatter box

- 'cause it just shatters it into— - Oh, I saw that in there.

- I was wondering what that was. - Yes, yeah.

It's like the shatter box!

And so, yeah, right?

I can see how heavy it is just—

Yeah, and so basically put the—

Oh my god!

Put the pieces in here, on your toe in particular.

Put the pieces in here. These guys move around randomly.

- Oh wow? - Right.

And then it just obliterates it into a super-fine powder.

It's almost like a rotary engine or something.

- Yeah. - Can I hold this?

Yeah, sure.

- Don't drop it either. - No, I won't.

Well this is way lighter than that tungsten carbide thing.

Yeah, so those are pretty frothy pieces

That were coming out.

And you know, you can see some pieces

Coming off of that guy.

So this— the whole thing in this video

Is that I'm going and trying to see the newest rock.

That's one of 'em.

This is one of the newest rocks on planet Earth.

Is there another volcano erupting somewhere right now

- That could be beating this? - Maybe.

Maybe?

- I think— - I think you have a point.

There's like 20 volcanic eruptions happening

- At the same time. - Yeah, yeah.

But some of them might be spewing some ash or whatever.

But in terms of, you know, rocks you can kind of hold.

Sure.

There we are.

We did it guys, let's go home!

But alas, I did not go home.

I still needed to stand on the newest rocks in the world.

The Hawaiian Islands sit right in the middle of the Pacific Plate,

By far the largest tectonic plate on Earth

Spanning 103.3 million square kilometers,

All of it oceanic crust.

And around the edges of the Pacific Plate,

You'll find hundreds of volcanoes

Where the plates are colliding and subducting.

This is called the Ring of Fire.

Most of Earth's volcanoes can be found here,

As well as most earthquakes.

Because this is how most volcanoes are formed.

When one plate subducts underneath a neighboring plate,

The heat and pressure then melts that crust,

And then it rises to the surface, creating a volcano.

But Hawaii is nowhere near a subduction zone.

It's in the very middle of the Pacific Plate.

So, how does the tallest volcano on Earth exist

In a place that shouldn't have any volcanoes?

The answer can be found when you look underneath the water,

'cause the Hawaiian Islands are far more than just

The eight or nine islands that you know about.

In fact, there are hundreds of underwater volcanoes and sea mounts

That stretch all the way up to the Arctic Ocean.

Hawaii has been on the move for millions and millions of years.

This is known as hotspot volcanism,

Where the volcano is created

By a hotspot of magma underneath the crust

That then punches through and forms the volcano.

And while it might look like the hotspot's

Been traveling to the southeast, the truth is...

The hotspot hasn't moved at all.

It's actually the Pacific Plate that's moving to the northwest

At a rate of 50 to 100 millimeters per year.

That's about this much per year,

And it's been moving that much per year

For millions and millions and millions of years.

In fact, you can see in this bend

In the line of volcanoes

Where the Pacific Plate changed direction

Roughly 40 million years ago.

The structures past this bend

Are known as the Emperor Chain, by the way.

So when you look at the Hawaiian Islands,

They get progressively older the further you go to the northwest,

Becoming more and more eroded over time

Until eventually they disappear beneath the water.

This gives each island its own identity and flavor.

Like, just compare the black sand beaches

And sparse crusty flat landscape of the Big Island,

With the lush, rust-colored cliffs and canyons of Kaua'i.

This is actually kind of

One of my favorite sciency things to tell people.

I just— I find it fascinating, you know, and honestly,

This globe helped spark the fascination that I have with it,

Because it shows the underwater sea mounts

And the Hawaiian Emperor Chain. It just...

It just made it all click for me when I was a kid.

Seriously, take away the iPad and give your kids a globe, people.

I still had a lot of questions about this process though.

So luckily I got to sit down

With another UH Hilo geologist, Lis Gallant.

One of the really interesting, and I think engaging parts

Of, you know, living here is having the Mo'oelo,

Which are, you know, the native Hawaiian stories.

And it's one of those things that, you know,

Native Hawaiians knew that, you know,

Kaua'i was older than O'ahu. O'ahu was older than Maui.

Maui's older than the Big Island.

And so that, you know, that's not something that,

You know, science discovered.

Like Hawaiians knew that

Just from looking around at their landscape.

My question is, so the Big Island is the newest one.

Were all the islands before that big,

And then they just sort of eroded away over time?

Or has the plate movement kind of slowed down,

And therefore this island has gotten bigger and bigger?

Or do we know that?

At one point, O'ahu looked like the Big Island.

We had active volcanoes, and we had larger landscapes.

But once you've removed that volcano from the hotspot,

You don't have anything constructing your islands anymore.

So it's just purely erosional.

And you probably have noticed as you've been here,

- It rains a lot here. - Yeah.

And so we have immense amounts of erosion happening.

And so as soon as you take that volcano off of the hotspot,

You're kind of fighting a losing battle

Against, you know, the elements.

The lifecycle of these volcanoes

Is actually pretty consistent.

And so eventually, you know,

The Big Island will look more like East Maui,

And then it'll look a little bit more like O'ahu,

And eventually it'll start looking more like Midway

And some of the other atolls

Out in the deeper Pacific, if you will.

The Big Island isn't the newest volcanism

That we have associated with the hotspot.

It's actually Kama'ehuakanaloa, where Lō'ihi is, folks...

- Oh yeah. - You know it?

It's still, you know, out in the ocean,

Underneath the waves for a little bit.

Yeah, what she's talking about here is a new volcano

Forming off the coast of the Big Island,

Roughly 975 meters below the ocean surface.

Originally named Lō'ihi, its name was changed in 2021

To Kama'ehuakanaloa,

Which means the "glowing child of Kanaloa".

Kanaloa is the Hawaiian god of the sea.

So yeah, eventually, that island will break the surface,

And it'll be the newest place in the world.

Which, I could wait for that to happen,

But it's supposed to take like 100,000 years.

And you know...

It's kinda taking me too long to get this video out already.

It's remarkable to me

That you have almost these slices of time

That you can just look at.

I mean, just as an outsider,

I'm just like, that's why I love telling people about it.

It's just— It's fascinating to me that you just get to see that.

So, and it's not just here in Hawaii as well.

If you look at other hotspot kind of areas,

It's not too dissimilar.

So, the Yellowstone hotspot.

You know, Yellowstone, "Yellowstone"

Used to actually be around the border

Of Idaho and Nevada in that area.

- Okay. - But as the plate has moved,

The location of where Yellowstone is has also moved.

And now in its wake,

We have something called the eastern Snake River Plain,

Which is kind of bunch of that, you know, very violent ash eruptions

- With a crust of lava on top. - Uh-huh.

- And so— - That's like behind it?

- Yeah. - Yeah, okay.

And so it's one of those things

Where I think it's most present here,

It's most obvious here, because we only have, you know,

The same kind of volcano kind of evolving

As we go up the chain.

But it's a process that happens all over the planet.

Okay.

And this one's like out in the middle of nowhere.

So it's more obvious, it feels like.

I mean, it's not nowhere to me.

It's my home. It's where I live.

You had to make me sound bad when making—

I wasn't meaning it like that.

Absolutely. I'm here for the shame.

Now all of this I thought I understood.

But then she hit me with this bit of knowledge.

Hotspots are really weird enigmatic sorts of things.

We think they start from the core-mantle boundary,

But it's not...

There's not really a definitive answer

About why we get hotspots.

Okay.

Right, there's still is a lot of,

You know, science happening around it.

So normally you have the mantle layer,

- And the crust is on top of it. - Mhm.

So the hotspot is that—

Sorry, this is, I know, dumb question, but like,

Is it from the mantle layer?

Is it like a bubble up from the mantle layer

That like hangs out there, and then kind of goes up?

So, yeah, it's actually—

It's not bubbling up from the mantle

Because you're thinking of it, you know,

The mantle on the top.

It's actually coming from the bottom.

So if you were to drill into like the center of the Earth,

You know, Jules Verne style, no dinosaurs, but...

- So you go through the crust first. - Yeah.

And then you'd go into the mantle.

The mantle is quite thick.

You'd go down into the mantle even further,

And then you'd hit the core and mantle boundary.

The core has two layers.

The inner core is solid. The outer core is liquid.

Yeah.

And so folks think that these hotspots originate

From that liquid outer core-mantle boundary.

And so what happens—

So it punches up through the rest of the mantle?

- Yeah! - Wow.

The cartoon that we have in our brains of, you know,

What it looks like underneath the ground,

Like, "Oh, it's a bunch of lava down there."

Actually most of the mantle is solid.

With just a few days left,

The eruption at Nāpau Crater was still going strong.

And so that area was still off limits.

And not just because of the lava

As much as the gas that comes with it.

Gas isn't the first thing

I think of when I imagine a volcano.

I generally think about the ash and lava

And just make an immature joke about the gas 'cause I'm a child.

But it turns out gas is the key to the whole thing.

Tricia Nadeau is a geologist with the US Geological Survey,

And her focus is on volcanic gases.

And while we were there, she took measurements

Along the edge of Volcanoes National Park,

Looking specifically for sulfur dioxide, or SO₂.

I know you go and do these driving measurements...

Daily, weekly? I mean, how often do you do those?

If nothing's erupting, every week or two, maybe.

But when it's erupting, we try and get at— you know,

At least one set a day if the winds cooperate.

If the winds are not cooperating, then we can't.

Sometimes eruptions are in remote places

Where we can't drive.

Then we have to do it by helicopter instead.

And then it's a matter of, can we get helicopter time?

So when we were following you around...

- Yeah. - What was going on there?

So one of our sort of workhorse measurements

Here at— well, I don't— any volcano observatory really is

Getting the emission rate of sulfur dioxide,

Just how much comes out over time.

And to do that, what I was showing you guys is...

It's what's called a spectrometer.

So, it's not quite a camera

In that it takes, you know, 2D pictures of things,

But it's just one pixel at a bunch of different wavelengths.

So, sulfur dioxide absorbs ultraviolet light from the Sun.

So if we use a spectrometer that's focused on ultraviolet light,

If we set that up on a car, and we have a GPS

To track our position and everything like that,

And data's coming into the computer, and it's essentially telling me

How much UV that spectrometer is seeing.

And so if you start in clear sky,

You see lots of UV coming from the sky.

Oh, okay.

But as you drive underneath a volcanic plume

With sulfur dioxide in it,

You get less and less UV.

And so it's sort of an inverse proportion.

The more sulfur dioxide you have,

The less UV your spectrometer is gonna see.

So you keep driving and you just see

How much sulfur dioxide you have overhead,

Come back out to clear sky,

And then you do a little math with the wind speed

And get your position from your GPS

To know exactly where you were, and you can figure out

What the emission rate of sulfur dioxide was.

Everybody, when they think of volcanoes,

They think of magma, they think of lava, they think of "bleeh",

But you're focused on the gas part of it.

Why is that important?

If it wasn't for gases dissolved in magma,

We wouldn't really have much in the way of volcanoes.

- If you think about... - Okay.

Shaking up a soda bottle, it's the bubbles and the gases

That make everything explode and actually come out of the bottle.

So it's the same with magma.

So it's dissolved gases that sort of make the magma buoyant

And drive the magma up to the surface

For— to be part of an eruption.

Oh, okay.

And then once it's out,

It's a health hazard for local populations.

So, it's important when it's still underground

'cause it's driving the eruption, and then once it comes out,

It can tell us roughly how much lava's coming out.

And it's a health hazard,

So we have to keep track of it underground

And once it gets to the surface.

I never thought about it being less dense

Because there's gas in it.

And that's— so is that

- What you're saying? - Yeah.

That it's like that's what pushes it up,

Is the fact that it's less dense, so it's more buoyant?

And in— not here in Hawaii because of the tectonic setting,

But in certain tectonic settings where we have volcanoes,

Having water dissolved down underground

Actually helps magma melt in the first place.

Okay.

So like where you have an oceanic plate

Going underneath a continent,

Like the Cascades or Alaska or Japan.

Right.

The water that's sort of incorporated

Into that oceanic crust heads down underneath the continent,

And then it comes off that tectonic plate,

And it facilitates melting.

And then once things like water and sulfur and carbon dioxide

Are dissolved in that magma,

That's when you get sort of that soda bottle effect,

And the gases drive the eruptions.

Wow.

That's crazy. I've never actually thought of it like that.

Buoyancy!

Why have I never thought of that before?

I never really thought about why lava comes up to the surface

Outside of just, you know, pressures inside the Earth,

Which does play a part in it.

But no, it's all about density and buoyancy.

There's a reason why the core of the Earth is mostly iron.

It's because iron is super dense, so it sinks.

Conversely, why does lava rise to the surface?

Because it's less dense. Why is it less dense?

Because it's filled with gas.

It's like if you hold a basketball

At the bottom of a pool and let it go.

It rises quickly, violently to the surface

Because it's filled with air.

Also, remember that buoyancy is why those cratons

Like the Acasta Gneiss kinda float above the tectonic activity

For billions of years. It's because it's less dense.

Pressure changes everything.

After talking to Tricia, we spent some time

Exploring Volcanoes National Park

And learned about its main attraction, Kīlauea.

The summit of Kīlauea is the most visited spot

In one of the most visited national parks

In the United States.

And once you've been here, it's easy to see why.

Even when it's inactive, as it was when we were there,

It's still a stunningly dramatic setting.

Pictures just don't do justice

To this impossibly huge hole in the ground

Crusted over with a texture that I can only describe

As looking like a giant chocolate brownie,

With dozens of vents releasing clouds of steam

That hint of the violence and extreme conditions

That exist right underneath the surface.

There's just this underlying hint of danger surrounding the crater,

From the thousand-foot drops to the craggy lava rocks.

Even the wind is lashing and violent,

And that's on a clear day.

On other days, a fog sets in,

Preventing you from seeing the bottom of the crater

And just enveloping the entire area in mystery.

So this is the famous Kīlauea Crater

At the top of the summit of Kīlauea.

This is pretty much what Volcanoes National Park

Is completely centered around.

So the crater itself is large and vast,

But there's a smaller crater inside of that crater,

And that's where all the action's taking place.

So there's fissures and openings and rift zones

All around this area.

And the lava can come up there all the time,

Happens a lot. But that's kind of like...

That's like Kīlauea's blowhole. It's just kinda always open.

Now, the lava cools when it hits the air

And just kinda turns into rock.

So it's not like if you look down in there,

You'll just see a lake of molten lava,

Although that would be cool.

And sometimes it's a lot more active than it is right now.

When it is active,

It really puts on a show, so much so...

That they built a hotel right over there

Called Volcano House Hotel,

Which has been rebuilt several times.

I'll let you figure out why.

Now, in 2018, something really remarkable happened here

When a fissure opened up at the Pu'u 'Ō'ō Crater,

Which is down about 10 miles that way.

But what happened here was that lava

In the crater over there sunk.

So that event in 2018 is what they called a summit collapse.

It didn't just drop all the magma down.

It also dropped a whole lot of the edge of the crater.

So like it got a lot bigger when that happened.

But I'll let Trish tell you more about what happened after that.

But up at the summit,

Draining all that magma to become lava flows meant

That that summit magma chamber was partially emptied

And not able to sort of support the ground surface anymore.

So we got a caldera collapse.

And it wasn't sort of one continuous thing.

It was the equivalent of a magnitude 5.3 earthquake

Roughly every day. And if you—

We have sort of an animation of it.

It sort of was stepwise.

It was like pulling a plug in a bathtub or something.

It just dropped.

At the bottom of the crater, it was a total of 500 meters drop,

Which is an Empire State Building.

So now we had this huge, deep crater,

And we have a water well

Not too far from the summit. So we knew....

You know, we have groundwater around the summit.

It had not been sort of in the crater area

'cause there was a lava lake there before the 2018 eruption.

So it was too hot for liquid water in that area, but...

Then there was, all of a sudden, there's no more lava.

Everything cooled down.

And that groundwater started to fill in.

And just under a year after the end of the eruption,

Someone was doing a lidar survey

To get at the new topography of the crater.

And they were like, "What is that little green thing at the bottom?"

It was water. It was a little puddle.

And so over the next 14, 15 months,

Water— the groundwater just kept infilling into the crater.

So we had this lake that just kept rising,

And there was also kinda weird chemistry going on.

So it went from like a greenish-blue

To greenish-yellow to brown.

But the thing about water at a volcano

Is that if you then have magma that wants to erupt,

If you get hot magma interacting with groundwater or lake water,

Depending on the ratio between the two...

Sometimes it is not explosive,

But sometimes it can be really explosive.

Yeah, yeah.

So that, you know, that affects a community

That lives only like a mile or two away.

They're worried about big explosions,

Ashfall, pyroclastic flows,

Things like you just don't— like I said,

The water lake was unprecedented in the written record.

We know from geologic samples

That there was probably lakes in the past.

But it was just new for all of us living here.

To get an idea of how that lava

Drained out of the caldera,

We made a stop at Kaumana Caves outside of Hilo.

This is one of hundreds of cave systems and lava tunnels

That crisscross the island and funnel both lava and water

From place to place.

So the Big Island's actually riddled

With caves and lava tubes just like this one.

And what happens, the reason they do that

Is because as the lava is pouring out on the surface,

The outside of it connects with the air,

It cools it down, and it hardens.

And that hardened lava rock

On the outside kinda insulates the inside.

So it keeps zipping along until the lava flow peters itself out,

Which just leaves a hollow tube behind.

Now, a lot of those hollow tubes, as we've seen walking around,

They just eventually crumble into, you know, rock.

But sometimes, they become caves like this,

Because other lava flows flow on top of it later on,

And soil builds up and whatnot,

And they become these big cave systems.

And sometimes these big cave systems even become like freshwater aquifers

That flow water from the upper and the mountains

Down to the rest of the valleys.

Now what's interesting about lava tubes

Is that there's also lava tubes on like, the Moon and Mars,

And they're actually talking about

As we go to settle and colonize on the Moon and whatnot,

That we might actually live in those lava tubes

Because we'd be protected from radiation and whatnot.

So lava tubes, you know, kind of bring life here in Hawaii,

And it'll maybe bring life to the Moon and Mars.

So it's kind of ironic 'cause we kinda started off

In caves here on planet Earth, and we might start off in caves

In other places in the universe too. Kinda interesting.

Oh, well this whole thing is like a tube.

I think I'm just gonna focus on not hitting my head.

This particular lava tube was formed in 1881

By an eruption from Mauna Loa and extends for just over two miles.

I'm not like a professional spelunker or anything,

But I think I do understand the pull of the void

That makes you go just a little bit further

And a little bit further into the darkness

Just to kinda see where it goes and what's next.

This cave system is well explored,

And there were several groups of tourists walking around it,

But it was still pretty dangerous with uneven ground and low ceilings

That I bonked my head against a few times.

This is like a subway tunnel for lava.

Just to imagine this entire thing being filled with rushing

1,400-degree hot liquid rock.

Let's hope that doesn't happen right now.

That would be bad.

More than anything, though, this cave was humid.

Insanely humid.

Water was constantly condensing on the ceiling

And falling onto my head in big fat drops,

Hence all the wetness on my shirt.

That and the fact that I was sweating my guts out.

As the clock ticked down on our week in Hawaii,

And the Nāpau Crater eruption continued unabated,

It became more clear

That actually standing on that brand new rock

Was becoming less and less likely.

So we thought...

...maybe we could at least fly over it?

Today, we're going up in a helicopter

To take a look around the island

And maybe see the new lava flow.

Never been on a helicopter before.

You guys been on a helicopter before?

Negative.

Never been on one.

We are going to defy the laws of gravity

And spit in God's face.

Find great glory!

Find great glory in skies above!

We weren't able to arrange a bespoke private flight

At such short notice,

But we did book a flight on Safari Tours,

One of several helicopter tour companies around Hawaii.

The flight was awesome, the pilot was super cool,

And even though it wasn't really on the flight path,

He humored us and flew over the site.

But as luck would have it,

Some clouds and fog had rolled in, so there wasn't much to see.

He unfortunately couldn't safely get us any closer than that,

So we didn't really get what we wanted.

But no complaints.

It was a lot of fun, and we saw some cool stuff,

And I'd never been in a helicopter before.

So, that was cool.

Even if we had seen it, though,

That still wouldn't have completed our mission.

We weren't there to fly over the newest rock in the world.

We were there to stand on it.

So if we couldn't go to the brand new rock,

And we ruled out the three-month-old rock,

We were left with one other option:

The 2022 Mauna Loa eruption.

So, who wants to drive up the world's tallest volcano?

Quick thought before I get up on this rock.

We get out here, and we get outta the car,

And as you can see,

The entire area is just completely bummed out

From volcanic everything. It's just like...

Everything is sharp corners. Everything's jagged.

There's thousands of little pumice stones,

And it's all absorbing the sound.

It is eerily...

...freakishly quiet.

It's so quiet.

Every once in a while, you can hear a little ping or a tick

From a tiny piece of rock that was like dislodged...

...somewhere.

Well, something that struck me at both places

– the oldest place, and now the newest place –

Is they are both so otherworldly.

But it's not another world. It's our world.

It's our planet.

This is how everything starts.

Just like at the oldest place, I don't really have the words.

But I'm trying to— in my head, I'm trying to think like,

Am I feeling rebirth?

Am I feeling renewal? Am I feeling devastation?

That's certainly is what the landscape looks like.

I feel like I'm under something living.

Or over— I'm standing on something that's living and...

...growing and recreating itself.

Do you have to be here to feel that?

We could have stayed out there

Capturing this alien landscape all day,

But the day was ending, and the fog had rolled in,

And the time had come for us

To drive the long, winding single-lane road

Back down to civilization.

So, we would love to stay, but I think...

I think it's gonna get dark.

Yeah.

- I think nature might consume us. - Yeah.

It's like a John Carpenter film all of a sudden.

And we got stuck on a rock for two hours,

But that's a story for another time.

But for all intents and purposes, we achieved our mission.

Granted, this wasn't the actual newest rock in the world.

It wasn't even the newest rock on this island.

But the newest part of this had always been kind of arbitrary.

There was newer rock in the world

By the time we got back home.

Hell, there was newer rock

By the time we got off that mountain.

There's been new rock created

Since you started watching this film.

But if the point was to see

What a landscape of a new Earth looks like

Still imprinted with the violence that created it,

I can't imagine a better place to experience it

Than that silent devastation of Mauna Loa, 9,000 feet up.

The science that I do is fundamentally important

To the location I live in,

And also the science that I do is dynamic,

Because the landscape where we live is dynamic, right?

We have a new lava flow.

There is, you know, rock

That is being born now as we're talking.

And so for me, it's not like

The overwhelming sense of like spirituality,

But it's a scenario where I think

That the landscape makes you feel small.

It's a humbling experience too, because nobody will ever look

At this exact same landscape and see it.

- Oh yeah. - Because the land is—

This landscape here is changing so quickly.

So if I'm on a field shift, nobody will ever see this landscape

Because I'm watching the lava flow

Cover this portion of, you know, this area.

I'm the only person that will ever see that.

And so that part's kind of humbling too.

Like I hold that knowledge now of what used to be there.

- It's almost more ephemeral. - Yeah, very—

Ephemeral is a good word for it.

Hawaii is ephemeral.

The life cycle of an island in the Hawaiian Emperor Chain

Is six to ten million years.

In the time that the Acasta Gneiss has been around,

More than 400 generations of Hawaiian islands

Could have risen, gone dormant, decayed,

And slipped beneath the surface.

The oldest sea mount on the Emperor Chain

Is named Meiji, around 82 million years old.

Beyond Meiji is the Kamchatka Trench,

Where the Pacific Plate slides beneath the North American Plate.

Beyond this point, there's no way to know

How many former big islands have been recycled into the Earth.

It could literally be thousands.

But the thing is, with the exception

Of a handful of places like the Canadian Shield,

That's pretty much true of the entire planet.

The majority of the Earth's surface

Has been remade over and over again

For 4.5 billion years.

We're looking at a different planet

That doesn't exist anywhere else.

'Cause no other planet has continents.

No other planet has water.

This planet has continents and water.

But back then, most likely did not have life,

Did not have plate tectonics the way we know of it,

Because the mantle was really hot, and the rocks were squishy.

Thinking about the Earth in this early period

Is an exercise in thinking about a planet that doesn't exist.

So, you know, this is like hallowed ground for geologists.

Everything we think about the Earth...

...was basically wrong back then.

That rock has a memory

From before our own beginning of time.

Elders are aware of, you know,

When they first heard about...

You know, that discovery of this oldest rock.

And they say, "Oh, they're talking about Ɂewaàtì."

You know, like...

So they knew about the lake already.

Like anything else, if something's that old,

It has a memory, and that memory

Goes back to before our own time,

Before even the world's time.

That, that if there's anything

That holds anything

Like a food bank that people depend on,

Or a knowledge bank, or a university, well...

For the plain Earth, for what it is,

That's probably where all the memory

Of the world comes from before it even happened.

This is the first thing that ever really was.

It feels a little odd.

Just like that it's so— that way you can do it.

- It feels odd that you can't— - It costs a little money.

Yeah, it costs some money.

It took three plane rides and a boat ride,

And we had to land on the water.

But, you know, it's just still, I don't know.

It's very special. It's very surreal.

Yeah, it's a great privilege.

I feel like we— I've been talking

About this and planning for it for so long,

And there were like a few different times a day I was like,

"We should actually— We're actually here."

- Mhm. - Yeah, surreal is another word.

Yeah.

You hear about these things.

You hear about the age of the Earth,

The age of the universe, the solar system,

The age of certain rock formations and places.

And it's all numbers.

It's all kinda abstract. It doesn't really mean anything.

But when you sit here, and you hold it,

And you think about that level of permanence...

...it's almost impossible to grasp.

I feel silly even trying to, if I'm being honest.

But I'm here...

...in the most ancient spot on planet Earth.

And I'm thankful.

Not just to be here, but to be here, to be in general.

This stuff that came out of the Earth.

I came outta the Earth too.

And I'm only gonna be here for a blink of an eye...

...compared to this.

And I'm thankful for that. That I get to exist at all.

I guess that's what I'm feeling.

If I'm gonna try to search for what I feel right now,

I feel grateful to be here.

That I've gotten to a place in my life

Where I've been able to do something like this.

To the people that helped me get here.

To the people who watch my channel and have supported me

So that I can be here.

And I'm thankful to...

God, Gaia...

This very rock...

...that I get to be here at all.

I gotta be honest, I sat on that rock

Trying to process how I felt into something profound.

It was mostly dross, but I think that can sum it up like this.

Thinking on these timescales,

Realizing what a tiny blip your life amounts to,

It can make you feel small.

But it can also make you feel connected.

You are a part of a process

That's been going on for an unfathomably long period of time.

A process of a planet recycling itself

Down to the very molecules,

And eventually arranging all those molecules into you,

A conscious being that's capable of understanding

The process that created it

...and all the existential dread that comes along with it.

Understanding that is only made possible

Because of the dedicated work of thousands of researchers

Solving the puzzles, expanding our knowledge,

Protecting our traditions, and keeping us safe.

I'm deeply thankful that I got to take this journey,

And for all the people who helped along the way

For helping me to understand that these landscapes

That I thought were so otherworldly...

...they're not really landscapes at all.

They're time-scapes.

They're a glimpse of different planets forged by time.

This... was a journey through time.

And I hope you enjoyed time traveling with me.

Thanks for watching. 'Til the next journey.