All language subtitles for Rise of the Continents 3of4 The Americas 720p HDTV_Subtitles01.ENG

New York City.

Gateway to the New World.

But also a gateway
back into the distant past,

not just of New York, but of
both North and South America.

I'm heading to the top of
the tallest building in the city,

in fact in the whole of the
Americas,

but because it's still going up,
I have to have this.

Rising 104 floors, right beside
where the twin towers once stood,

this is World Trade Center 1.

Few people realise it, but this
building and the ones around it

have a direct connection
to a mysterious past.

There's a secret
hidden in this iconic skyline.

And deciphering it will reveal
a long-lost world.

I'm going to reach back in time
to explore this lost world.

The evidence that unlocks that
ancient past is hidden all around us

in rocks, landscapes
and even animals.

The tiniest detail can reveal
the history of a vast continent.

Those clues reveal a defining moment
in the story of the Americas...

..and show how these turning points
have transformed evolution...

It's moving.

..created incredible economic
riches...

That feels really close.

..and changed the human history
of these two great continents.

If you really want to understand
the modern Americas,

you have to understand
the remarkable story

of how they were born,
from the wreckage of a lost world.

You can find a clue to the origin
of both American continents

here at the top of
World Trade Center 1.

It's the way that Manhattan
skyscrapers are concentrated

in just two places -

Downtown, where I am,
and a couple of miles further north.

And there you can see
the Empire State Building -

that patch is Midtown.

New York skyscrapers
are concentrated

in Midtown and Downtown
for a very good reason.

One that's buried beneath
each one of them

and that puts New York at the heart
of an ancient world.

To find evidence for this ancient
world, I need to explore

the foundations
of the city's skyscrapers.

It's a bit rickety, this thing,
isn't it?

Before any building goes up high,
you've got to dig down deep.

And that takes some hard-core tools.

Now, that is the kind of geology
hammer I have always wanted to have.

I'm looking for
a particular type of rock.

One that dates back
at least 300 million years.

Inside it, there's evidence
of what this place was like

in the long-distant past.

A past that helps explain
the mystery of New York's skyline.

Crystal.

High pressures.

This rock face, it's the foundation
stone on which,

for me,
modern America was built.

If you look at it, you can see
there's a whole series of lines.

It's like bands coming through.
And that's because of the crystals -

look, you can see them
glittering away here.

They're all stacked on top of
each other in a series of layers.

You can see that
when you look at it closely.

When you zoom into this rock...

what you see is a mosaic of
crystals...

..that are flattened
in this direction

and are elongated,
strung out in this direction here.

And that transformation,
that rearrangement,

has been done under really high
temperatures, maybe 700 degrees,

but also really high pressures.

You get an idea
of just how much pressure

from a mineral
that you actually find in here.

It's a mineral that gives this rock
a blue tinge.

And it's a mineral called kyanite.

Now, kyanite is
a really interesting mineral.

It's formed by pressures
of four kilobars or more.

Four kilobars
doesn't seem very much,

but if you were squeezed
by four kilobars

you'd be squeezed by a block of rock
a metre by a metre

that extends upward
for 13 kilometres.

This dense bedrock is known as
Manhattan schist.

The only way that you can generate
the heat and pressure

that you need to form the
dense strength of a rock like this

is if you produce it
under an enormous weight.

The kind of weight
that's far in excess

of anything you find
around here today.

And you just get the hint of it
here.

We know from the Coconino layer

that the Grand Canyon had become the
western edge of a giant desert...

..that spread across almost all
of what is today the Americas,

Africa and Europe.

This gigantic desert was a direct
result of Pangaea's formation.

One huge landmass meant that most
of the land was distant from the sea

so rain-carrying winds
couldn't reach the centre.

250 million years ago,
Earth had become a desert planet.

Not good news for the amphibians.

But in the heart of this arid world,
one type of animal did flourish.

Although this environment was
extreme desert, it wasn't lifeless.

The evidence is right here
on the rock face.

You can see these
really odd markings.

And what they are, are footprints,
a track way of an animal

that was walking up here,

pushing down, kind of displacing
the sand.

What is was, was a reptile.

A reptile with a tail,
because you can see

this sinuous track of this reptile
that's dragged its tail up.

To adapt to these
super-arid environments

required an evolutionary innovation
that would be inherited

by all the reptiles -
by birds, by mammals...

by you and I.

250 million years ago, America was
at the centre not only of Pangaea,

but of a massive evolutionary
change.

I've come to see what it was

in an ancient animal
with a fearsome reputation.

The alligator.

It's mating season
at the Colorado Reptile Park...

..and these feisty fellas
scrap for the right to breed.

So keeper Jay Young has to tend
their wounds.

Helping him treat his injured means
I can get up close and personal

to an animal whose ancestors
roamed the Americas

when they were part of Pangaea.

You let me know
when you need this thing.

I'm gonna give you the stick.
Don't you need that?

ALLIGATOR GROWLS

Look at this.
He's going to grab the tail.

Oh, my goodness!

Whoa! Whoa! Hissing everywhere.

So what do I do?
Move it...

Agh!

Where should I be?
Your left or right as you come out?

Either way. Ready?

OK, now we yank and jump.

Make sure both the hands
are near her neck

at the same time.
No, you jump.

I'll just stay at this end.

ALLIGATOR HISSING

Yeah? OK, come up here.

Are you sure? Yeah.

Jump on her back.
That's it - all your weight.

Put your hands right here on her
neck. OK, you got her?

Yeah, I think so. We'll soon find
out. OK. Hey there, honey.

We'll soon find out.
Anariki, is it? Yeah.

Hi, Anariki. Pleased to meet you.
I'm gonna get lunch.

I'll be back in a few!
HE LAUGHS

I hope that's a joke.
It's moving!

Ooh!

OK, keep your hands on her neck.
I haven't got it.

Just letting you get
a sense of her power.

Is she strong?
It's incredible, yes, very strong.

She heard that Scots taste
like chicken.

But very weak chicken!

This is the closest
I'm ever going to get

to a creature from Pangaean times

because alligators share
an anatomical connection

with the ancient reptilian fossils.

It's this - what we call the ankle
joint, it's the crural-tarsal joint,

and it's a really distinctive
adaptation.

You can get this thing underneath
your body, you can push yourself

more upright and you can have
this really fast gait.

That looks sore, doesn't it?

'Anariki's ancestors were
hugely successful in Pangaea.

'The way they moved was part of it.'

Back on her.
I think that's it.

'But the biggest breakthrough
was something

'that perfectly equipped them
for Pangaea's desert world...

'The way they have sex.'

Alligator sex is pretty much
like human sex,

certainly in the style of
copulation.

The key is internal fertilisation.

Delivering the sperm inside the
female and directly to the ova.

And that process involved
the invention of sex.

Sex is the most efficient and direct
way of achieving fertilisation.

It's how modern reptiles, birds
and mammals impregnate.

Up until this innovation,

fertilisation could only occur
externally, in water.

Amphibians were the first
vertebrates to emerge onto land.

But because they
fertilised externally,

they had to return to water
to breed.

The newly evolved reptiles
did things differently.

They fertilised and developed
their eggs inside their females,

so by the time the eggs were laid,
they had hard, impermeable shells.

These eggs didn't need water
to survive.

This is chicken egg,

but surprisingly it's about the same
size as an alligator egg.

But what's important
is what's inside.

Because what's inside
is the amniotic fluid.

That transparent liquid,

that's the stuff
that contains the energy

and the life-sustaining waters

that amphibians would have found
in the rivers and seas.

This object, the egg,
was the revolution.

Mammals have taken
those life-supporting fluids

inside themselves and supplied
nutrition through a placenta.

But we're still children
of that first amniotic reptile.

The Pangaean deserts were
essentially

an impenetrable barrier
to the amphibians.

But for the reptiles
it was a different story.

The development of internal
fertilisation and the amniotic egg

allowed them to spread into
and thrive

in those arid environments.

It's a wonderful example
of how environmental change

can be a catalyst
for evolutionary advances

and those advances would lead
eventually to the evolution of us.

It's interesting to think
that the way that we have sex

and the way that we rear our young

have been shaped by these deserts
of the distant past.

North and South America
spent almost 100 million years

nestled together
in the heart of Pangaea.

But by 200 million years ago,
there were signs

that this gigantic landmass
was about to break up.

This break-up would have
a massive influence

on the modern-day Americas.

It would end up creating fortunes,
destroying lives

and transforming the landscape.

The evidence for this cataclysmic
event is right under the nose

of unsuspecting commuters, driving
in and out of New York every day.

Connecting Manhattan to New Jersey
is the George Washington Bridge.

Anchored on one side by an imposing
cliff face, the Hudson Palisades.

I've come here to find evidence

of probably the single
most important event

in the history
of the two American continents.

The moment when they split
from Pangaea.

There's a telltale sign here

that really shows how
these rocks came into being.

Hexagon.

Vertical fracture.

You can see it in the shape
of these blocks.

They've got these regular sides
to them.

And this block as well -
you can see it beautifully there.

And there's six sides -

one, two, three, four, five, six.

These hexagons are
the flat-top surfaces

of columns that go
straight the way down.

You can see it as vertical fractures
in the cliffs

all the way along here.

What they are telling you

is that this rock started off
as a liquid mush.

'A molten fluid that must have
cooled rapidly.'

And as it cools, it congealed,
it contracted in

and the most efficient way of doing
that is to pull in from all sides

and create these wonderful hexagons.

So this rock, which is a kind of
basalt, started off as hot magma.

The magma that erupted out
is thought to have been brought up

by a current of hot rocks
known as a mantle plume.

It's not clear why they form,

but rising mantle plumes
push the land up

like a heat blister
until it cracks and fractures,

triggering immense
volcanic eruptions.

These cool and become
layers of basalt.

Geologists have found evidence of
this humungous volcanic outpouring

in places thousands of miles apart

If we just look at it
on a modern map,

we find that the equivalent layer
of this basalt

that we get here in eastern America

has also been found
in eastern Canada,

it's been found in southern Britain,
in Portugal

in West Africa
and in parts of Brazil.

Now, viewed from the perspective
of Pangaea 200 million years ago,

it makes perfect sense.

If you wind back time, all
these places were joined together.

Part of a single, huge
volcanic event

that spread across Pangaea's heart.

A fiery inferno covering
10 million square kilometres.

Across this huge area,

great sheets and rivers of lava
burned for thousands of years.

Volcanic ash and gas played havoc
with the planet's climate.

Large numbers of reptiles and half
of all plant species were wiped out.

But these were also the death throes
of the supercontinent itself.

The eruptions created
chasms and rifts

that would eventually
fill with water.

Pangaea split apart

and out of it emerged
a brand-new continent...

North America

and the beginnings
of a brand-new ocean...

..the Atlantic.

The mantle plume kick-started a
process that is still going on today

with major consequences
for the Americas.

3,000 kilometres from land

and 2,500 metres under the ocean,

you find strange volcanic vents

spewing superheated water.

Home to deep-sea shrimps

that feed on minerals
erupting out of the Earth.

These vents are just one tiny part

of a huge underwater
chain of volcanoes

called the mid-ocean ridge...

..that spreads down the middle
of the Atlantic Ocean...

along which magma is constantly
emerging,

cooling and turning into fresh rock.

The Mid-Atlantic Ridge
marks where Pangaea fractured,

to create two new tectonic plates.

The North American plate on one
side,

Eurasia and Africa on the other.

And as lava continues to erupt
at the ridge,

these continental landmasses
move gradually further apart.

It's odd to think that each year,

New York and the Americas get 2cm
further west from Europe and Africa.

The New World driven inexorably
away from the old.

It's this separation

with newly formed plates pushing
away from each other on one side

and jostling for position
with their neighbours on the other

that's shaped the New World.

By 130 million years ago,

North America had fully separated
from Pangaea.

Then the action shifted south.

Around 85 million years ago,

the remains of Pangaea split again
to form another plate.

Moving away west, separate from
both Africa and North America,

was the newly formed continent
of South America.

It's journey was to be
anything but smooth.

Today, South America has

some of the most spectacular
landscapes on Earth.

They're the product of
a violent geological past

that shaped an equally turbulent
human history.

This relationship
between geology and history

is revealed in the Bolivian town
of Potosi.

Once part of the Spanish Empire,

what the conquistadors
plundered here

bankrolled their empire
for three centuries.

But at a price.

Agh! Hey!

Pedro, how are you?
Good morning.

Thanks for doing this.
I'll give you a hand.

Local miner, Pedro Montes Coria,

is going to take me inside the
deadliest mountain in human history.

Cerro Rico.

We're going to see what
the conquistadors discovered here.

But this mine also reveals
why South America's movement

has been such a violent process.

Before entering the depths,

miners fortify themselves

with intoxicating coca leaves.

You have to chew the coca like this,
one by one. Oh, OK.

I feel a kind of buzz
on my tongue, actually.

Just on here...zzzz.

With coca, we are not very thirsty,
hungry,

you want maybe to sleep.

We feel that we are stronger
with the coca leaf.

So what age do you start
eating coca leaves?

When we come to the mine. We are
ten years old. Ten years old? Yeah.

Switch on the light.
Oh, yeah.

Not only are many of the miners
school age,

but they're entering a world
where tunnels regularly give way

and explosives are unregulated

so the miners' first stop before
the depths is to ask for protection.

This way. OK. First to visit El Tio.
Is that El Tio?

This is the devil in the mountain?
He is our God.

Of course he is like a devil, but not
the same devil that we have outside

because everything here
belongs to him.

We are going to do the ritual.

Take some coca and put in his hands,

on his willy, his head.

El Tio, lot of safety in the mine.

Yes. Do you know this alcohol?

I don't, no. It says, "Alcohol
potable" so drinkable alcohol.

It says, "96" - oh, cha!

"Industrial Bolivia." Cheers to you.

That's... Very nice.

And then good luck to me. Yeah.

HE COUGHS

That is strong. Yeah.

Oh, gosh!

Oh! Whoo!

OK.

If anything, the rituals left me
feeling even more nervous.

Watch with the hole. The hole?
It's deep! Yeah.

How far does that go down,
do you think?

It's like 80 metres down,
more or less.

This tunnel is connecting
to another mine.

OK, so the mines are
all interconnected.

All the mines - it's like Swiss
cheese, full of holes.

Every step needs to be taken
very carefully.

The miners work by digging
and blasting through the rock.

Collapses and fatalities
are a fact of life

and you never know
what the other miners are doing.

What's happening?

BLAST
Oh, that was close.

That's happening!
That was it, was it?

Yeah.

BLAST
Oh!

BLASTS

BLAST
Shhh...!

That feels really close.

I can smell the dynamite.
Yeah. Really strong.

Down here is what three centuries
of miners have been looking for.

So here we are.

OK, I see it. You see this band
coming all the way down here?

Just in amongst it all is a rather
dull grey mineral, and that...

Well, that's the silver.

That's what miners like Pedro
are after.

And, for me, the way
this precious silver is laid out

reveals a fundamental process
that's shaped South America

and its often bloody history.

Hot fluids.

It's actually concentrated
on these really narrow bands.

These are called veins

and you can actually see them
all the way up across there.

Those metals would have been
laid down by hot fluids.

And the reason the fluids were hot

was because deep beneath my feet
at the time was molten magma,

magma that had risen up
from the mantle,

carrying with it metal elements
like zinc and gold and silver.

And as that magma rose
higher and higher, it heated up

water that was circulating
through the crust

and those waters,
at several hundred degrees Celsius,

started to pick up
those metal elements,

to carry them higher and higher

until they just ditched their cargo,
stuffing them into veins like this.

But what's surprising is the source
of that water.

Analysing the steam that emerges
from volcanic vents nearby

reveals something unexpected.

The steam's chemical signature
is similar

to that of water
found 400 kilometres to the west.

The waters of the Pacific Ocean.

So the most obvious conclusion is
that some of the hot waters

that have been percolating
through these rocks in this region

started out in the Pacific.

And that is telling us about a
process

that's going on
deep beneath my feet now

and is really at the heart
of those moving continents,

and that process is subduction.

Subduction is the key
to understanding

how South America was changed
as it moved west.

As the South American plate moved
apart from Africa,

it collided with the Pacific Ocean
plate

and the collision is going on
right underneath Cerro Rico.

The ocean floor of the Pacific plate
is sinking down,

dragging a part of the Pacific Ocean
deep underneath South America.

This is subduction.

The sinking rock heats up

and minerals and water
from the old ocean floor

escape into the continental rocks
above.

It's this process that has given
South America

its incredible mineral wealth.

From tin, copper and zinc
to gold and silver.

Hey! Fresh air!

Hey! Good, my friend.

Thank you very much. Yes.

That's good then.

In the 17th century, the town
of Potosi was as big as London.

The mines resources not only
resulted in fabulous riches -

40,000 tonnes of silver
came out of this mine -

but a terrible history of
exploitation.

During the Spanish colonial
centuries, it's been estimated that

as many as eight million
indigenous people and slaves died

working the mines of Cerro Rico.

So the fruits of subduction

have shaped the recent human history
of this region.

But over tens of millions of years,

it's also created the defining
feature of the continent.

As the ocean plate pushes underneath
the leading edge of South America,

it kind of gets snagged and jarred.

Pressure builds up and you generate
these huge earthquakes

and also open up pathways

for magma to rise up to the surface
and produce volcanoes.

And what you get
over 60 million years

is the gradual uplift and crumpling
of this whole region.

The result, almost a by-product
of subduction,

is the longest mountain range
on any continent...

The Andes.

The Andes stretch for more than
6,000 kilometres

along almost the entire western
coast of the continent.

It's a long, narrow range

because the mountains follow
the boundary between the two plates

where subduction is taking place.

And in a strange twist of fate,

their formation may give Bolivia
the chance to gain

some measure of compensation
for the traumas of the past.

As they have grown, the mountains
have lifted one Bolivian lake

from its original position
near sea level

to a height of nearly 4,000 metres.

This is the Salar de Uyuni,
the biggest salt flat on Earth.

Hidden in this landscape

is a resource worth tens of billions
of dollars.

It could have the global impact
of the silver of Potosi,

but without its tarnished history.

FOOTSTEPS CRUNCHING

The key to understanding
this new source of wealth

is inside something
we nearly all carry in our pockets.

Open up any mobile phone, whether
it's a fancy new touch-screen

or one of these old-style handsets

and you'll find the battery.

And what all these batteries have
got in common is one key element.

The active components inside here
are made of lithium carbonate.

As well as being in a mobile phone,

lithium's in laptops
and all electronic devices.

It's used because of one quality
above all.

And that is lithium is
the lightest of all the metals

so it gives more power for its mass.

Now here's a thing.

Bolivia has as much as 50%
of the world's lithium reserves.

Most of it
in this extraordinary landscape.

So we have levels one through five,
just like a hurricane or tornado,

and it was pegged at that five level
storm. It was as big as it gets.

It also offers a potential clean
green future for cars.

Until now,
electric cars have been hampered

by the weight of their batteries.

But lithium makes it
easier and cheaper

to produce lightweight batteries
for the cars of tomorrow.

It's thought
there's enough lithium here

to make batteries for more than
four billion electric vehicles.

Enough to make Bolivia
a Saudi Arabia of the 21st century.

In places, the lithium is
only just below the surface.

Where the crust is thin,
you can see the brine underneath.

And if you really hammer away at it,

then you can actually see
the structure of the salt.

Look at that. It's beautiful.

All these symmetrical crystals.

The white ones are sodium chloride -
that's just ordinary table salt

but this pink one here -
that's potassium

and this one, the brown-coloured
one, that - that's lithium.

So today the lithium's here
at the surface in the salt

but it started off way down deep.

Subduction produced magma

that rose up and erupted out of
volcanoes like that over there.

In fact, there's a whole series
of them all the way around.

So these mountains
are rich in lithium.

From the slopes of the Andes,
run-off erosion

washes the metal-rich sediments
down to the lake.

Since it's been uplifted, the lake
has become surrounded by mountains

so no river can find a way out
to drain the Salar.

The result is that the only way
water leaves the lake

is through evaporation.

Over time, that concentrates
minerals, including lithium,

in the lake bed.

There's now a plan to build

a full-scale lithium extraction
plant in the Salar.

Huge multinationals want in,

but the Bolivian government says
it wants to avoid

the foreign exploitation
that marked colonial silver mining.

Subduction and the rise of the Andes

has given South America
extraordinary mineral wealth

and all that a consequence
of that gradual drift

of the New World away from the old.

That process has shaped the destiny
of South America in another way.

I mean, here it's given us a
landscape of jaw-dropping beauty,

but completely lifeless.

But elsewhere it's created
some of the richest

and most unique habitats
on the planet.

One ecosystem above all others
owes its existence to the Andes,

because as the Andes grew,

the rivers of South America went
through a series of massive changes.

Before the Andes, it's thought
the main rivers flowed

in the opposite direction to today,
into the Pacific.

When the Andes started to rise,
they diverted rivers to the north,

where they flowed out
into the Caribbean,

creating a huge area of wetlands
close to the growing mountains.

But then further uplift
blocked the route north

and forced the rivers to converge
towards the Atlantic,

forming an enormous drainage basin.

And that led to the creation
of the Amazon rainforest.

Meanwhile, on its western flanks,

the Andes created a rain shadow.

The result is the driest place
on the planet...

the Atacama Desert.

By ten million years ago,

both South and North America
looked similar to today,

but there was one
critical difference.

They were still separate continents.

The stage was set for the final act
in the story of the Americas.

It didn't lead to a dramatic change
in the landscape.

But it did transform their wildlife.

Few animals are better suited to
the mountainous terrain of the Andes

than the llama.

Hello!

These animals are just magnificently
adapted for life at altitude.

There's obvious things
for the low oxygen -

they've got big hearts and enlarged
lungs, but there's something else.

Can you catch one for me, Clemente?

Just to see... There's something
I want to show you.

HERDER WHOOSHES
OK.

Just any one. There we go.

OK. OK, this is nice.

So I just want to show you the feet
because unlike other hoofed animals,

the llama's feet are split into two,
they've got two toes.

And underneath the two toes -
can I just lift it up a little bit?

It's got this thick leathery sole.

What that means is that
it's perfect for sure-footedness

on really rough rocks.

Just perfect for
up this mountain terrain.

And the other thing's inside -
it's the blood

because the haemoglobin,

the red blood cells that carry
oxygen through the body,

llamas have got more haemoglobin
per unit volume

than any other mammal -
it's extraordinary.

So there's a whole series
of really clever adaptations.

They're just wonderful beasts.

Thanks for that. Let him go.

Since Inca times, llamas have been
at the heart of Andean life.

The animals' wool is used
for making clothing.

Its meat is a staple of local diets.

Even the animals' blood is sacred.
It's sprinkled around doorways

to bring blessings
to those who enter.

There's something unexpected

about this particular
South American animal.

Llamas that seem so at home
in the high mountains

aren't from this continent at all.

They evolved in the low-lying plains
of North America.

They're living evidence
of the final instalment

in the tale
of the two continental Americas -

their joining up.

The llamas' ancestors first appear
in North America

about 40 million years ago.

But they don't appear
in South America

until three million years ago.

The two continents had been
edging closer together.

Then, starting around
30 million years ago,

volcanic islands began to combine,

slowly building a land bridge
between the two.

By three million years ago,

two continents that had been
separate since the days of Pangaea

were finally joined again.

The New World was born.

Across this narrow link has come
a great intermingling of species.

Northern mammals in particular
invaded the south.

Deer, foxes and dogs
all crossed over,

and cats that quickly became
the prime predators.

The result was to increase
South America's biodiversity.

Among the most successful arrivals,
the llama,

ironically now long extinct
in the north.

For me, the llama is the perfect
symbol of the New World.

Originating in the northern
continents

and flourishing in the southern.

It represents both the isolation and
the coming together of the Americas.

Since that momentous joining,

the story of the Americas
has been of a single land.

When the first humans arrived
in North America,

they quickly moved into the south.

And when Europeans arrived,

both Americas were seen
as a single New World.

Today, continental movement means

the Americas continue their
westward drift from the Old World.

But on a cultural and economic
level,

you can argue
the opposite is the case.

Walk through any market place,

even one like this in the relatively
inaccessible Andes,

and you find evidence
for a connected world, old and new.

Here, you can find electronics,
designed in America,

made in the Far East.

English football shirts.

And food.

Beef and pork that came here
with the Europeans,

while potatoes and tomatoes
and chocolate

were all South American in origin,
now worldwide in consumption.

So, although the single
continuous landmass of Pangaea

no longer exists,

our modern-day continents
are linked in a different way.

Today, our great global economy
binds all the continents together.

In essence,
we've created a new Pangaea.

A Pangaea of our own making.

And in this Pangaea, just like
the one 300 million years ago,

the Americas are right at the heart.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd