Episode 32
Ultima Thule (Episode 17) - Icehouses and Greenhouses
With humanity finally able to reach Antarctica we were able to pull out ice cores that go much deeper back in time than anything from the Arctic, giving us the ability to peer back millions of years. But ice cores are not the only way humans are able to peer into the past and rocks found all over the planet allow us to see back to nearly the creation of Earth. And just like ice cores, rock samples have shown the Milankovitch Cycles at work the entire time leading the Earth to take on truly alien landscapes. A space traveler could fly by Earth at different times and see a planet of magma, an ice-covered snowball, or an oxygen-free wet and warm water world, just to name a few of Earth's previous looks. In this episode we explore the most extreme climates the Earth has ever been through - the icehouses and greenhouses. We learn how they got that way, how they reversed course, and how the climate is intertwined with life on Earth leading to the greatest extinction event in the history of the world. (17/29)
