Fossil wonderlands. Episode one, Weird wonders /
In this revelatory series, Professor Richard Fortey, Britain's foremost chronicler of ancient worlds, tells the extraordinary history of paleontology through three of the world's greatest fossil sites. These fossil 'time capsules' contain entire eco-systems of now-vanished worlds...
| Other Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Video |
| Language: | English |
| Language Notes: | In English. |
| Published: |
London, England :
BBC Worldwide,
2014.
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| Series: | Academic Video Online
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | Connect to this streaming video (Alexander Street Press) |
| Summary: | In this revelatory series, Professor Richard Fortey, Britain's foremost chronicler of ancient worlds, tells the extraordinary history of paleontology through three of the world's greatest fossil sites. These fossil 'time capsules' contain entire eco-systems of now-vanished worlds. Only a handful of them exist in the world, but each one of them has overturned generations of paleontological thinking and reconfigured our understanding of the past. These 'super-sites' are uniquely special not just because of the scale of the life preserved but because each location reveals a history of evolution of one type of creature and highlights three key evolutionary moments: early life in the seas, feathered dinosaurs and the rise of birds and the birth of mammals. Together they tell a story not just of the ancient past, but how that past was discovered. In this first episode, Professor Richard Fortey journeys high in the Rocky Mountains to explore a 520 million-year-old fossilized seabed containing bizarre and experimental life forms that have revolutionized our understanding about the beginnings of complex life. Among the amazing finds he uncovers are marine creatures with five eyes and a proboscis, filter-feeders shaped like tulips, worm-like scavengers covered in spikes but with no identifiable head or anus, and a meter-long predator resembling a giant shrimp. |
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| Item Description: | Title from resource description page (viewed March 06, 2019). "Nature's hidden treasures". |
| Physical Description: | 1 online resource (50 minutes) |
| Playing Time: | 00:49:26 |