Original subtitles

until about 220 million years ago

new england and north africa were next door neighbors

it was no such thing as the Atlantic Ocean

those thin blue fingers at the center

they were lakes

they were the first outward

signs that the supercontinent was splitting apart

and that life on earth

was due for another big shake up

1 million years later the lakes became a long bay

which would grow into the Atlantic Ocean

these profound changes at the surface

were merely symptoms of a drama that was unfolding

far beneath and the depths of the earth

by the time we got here

the telltale traces of global revival

were buried at the bottom of the deep blue sea

we were completely cut off

from the great story of earth's violent past

a species of amnesiacs trying to find out

who we were and what happened before we awakened

in 1570

abraham tortillas created the first modern world atlas

reflecting the discoveries of the previous 80 years

the golden age of exploration

before the ink was dry

tortillas stepped back from his masterpiece

and became the first of many to notice

the striking puzzle piece fit

between the continents on either side of the atlantic

he later wrote that the americas

were torn away from europe and africa

by earthquakes and floods

but artillus's observation remained

nothing more than a hunch

for the next couple of centuries

until an early 20th century

German astronomer had meteorologist

amassed the evidence to build

the scientific case for him

alfred wagner had been drafted during the first

world war but was wounded soon after

as you recovered in a field hospital

he scoured scientific literature

for clues to the earth's past

the years before

vagner had happened upon an intriguing paper

in the stacks of his university library

it puzzle vagner

that fossils of the same

species of an now extinct fern

were reported to be found

on both sides of the atlantic

even more curious

we're the discoveries of fossils of the same

dinosaurs on both continents

in the early 20th century

geologists explain how life crossed the oceans

by imagining that

land bridges had once existed between them

it was thought that these bridges

gradually disintegrated and vanished beneath the waves

long ago

but there was one piece of evidence

that convinced ragnar

that the prevailing scientific view must be wrong

the earth itself

why would a mountain range cross the oceanic divide

to continue on another continent

and why would you find the same

unique pattern in the layers of rocks

in both Brazil and South Africa

and another thing

under what circumstances could

tropical plants have flourished

in the frozen wastes of the arctic

ragnar concluded that there was only one

logical solution to this puzzle

there had once been a single supercontinent on earth

he named it pang

so vagrant becomes the toast of the scientific world

right

not exactly

most geologists ridiculed vendors hypothesis have

continental drift

they preferred their imaginary

natural land bridges to explain away regular's

evidence

how they asked

could a continent plow through

the solid rock of the ocean floor

vagner had no convincing answer

became the laughing stock of the field

pariah at scientific conferences

despite this regular continued to fight for his ideas

conducting daring research expeditions to gather

evidence

on one of these people

earned that colleagues were trapped on an ice cap

without food

on his way back from the mission

he became lost in a blizzard

a day or two after his 50th birthday he disappeared

never knowing that in time

he would be vindicated and come to be viewed

as one of the greatest geologists in history