Arte - Voyage of the Continents Series 2 (2014) Part 3 North America

– Original title “La Valse des Continents” –

“The Earth's great rhythm permeates everything, and man is caught up in it, in spirit as much as in body. ”

This second series of 5 x 52min tells the animated story of the genesis of our continents. This real waltz of land masses sculptures our landscapes. It will take us this time in Africa and in Americas. Since its formation, 4,55 billion years, our Earth is submitted to strengths of an incredible power. The earth's crust is in perpetual evolution, redrawing indefatigably the world map. Continents assemble and part, victims of collisions and tearings. Perceptible movements through earthquakes, through volcanic raids and through tsunamis. In this “tectonic waltz “of lands and seas, real geologic epic, we follow passionate and fascinating scientists. With them, we travel more than a billion years all over the world to reconstitute the puzzle of our continents and understand the indefatigably sculptured grand landscapes. The continents are not eternally fixed in their majesty. Far from being immutable points of reference, they are born, grow, and finally succumb to the effects of time, like living beings. The heart of our planet creates and moves them in a never-ending journey. The continents come together and separate, victims of collisions and tectonic subduction. Life in the mantle can be perceived through earthquakes and tsunamis. From place to place, volcanic action adds a spectacular, often violent touch to the Earth's surface. Around a core as hot as the sun, the Earth's crust is perpetually evolving and redrawing the map of continents and oceans. This four billion year dynamic is perceptible to people who are trained to see it, people with a third eye the eye of the geologist. To understand it, our eyes must be re-educated by looking at some of nature's lessons offered by the Earth, where we can learn to decipher its grandest creations, in landscapes that are continually being sculpted. Via the epic of continental drift, we travel to all 4 corners of the planet, to meet scientists who are carrying out state-of-the-art research on the most emblematic landscapes of each geological event. With these scientists, and thanks to their work, we discover the sites in a new light – landscapes that we often see but rarely look at closely. The journey also establishes the key reference points of life alongside the geologic time scale - the appearance of life, of plants, of terrestrial life, dinosaurs and Man punctuate the geologic time scale.

Directed by Alexis de Favitski ; Co-Produced by La Compagnie des Taxi-Brousse,CNRS Images and ARTE France in participation with CNC,TFO, Ushuaia TV and Discovery Networks Asia Pacific.

Part 3 North America

North America is perpetually reinventing itself. The continent is also a wild world of rivers, plains and ice, where iridescent-coloured deserts lie alongside lush valleys and mountains holding many secrets. From the Far North to the Deserts of Utah, from the Rockies to Death Valley, the sites it features are on the scale of the continent itself. The Far North is among the Earth's oldest, as Don Francis hopes to confirm. Then, after being connected with the future Europe, North America became separated when the North Atlantic Ocean opened up. Mountains common to these two continents were partly on one side and Paul Olsen compares them, and when they separated, the two continents took on their share of dinosaurs. Species that have evolved on their own, but for North Americans, the “Great Plains” is an ideal giant cemetery. Pushed by the Atlantic, the continent collided with the Pacific. As a result, mountains Sierra Nevada, Rocky Mountains. Allen Glazner ignores erosion to imagine what these colossuses were like when they were formed, but North America is a living continent. In its heart, the Yellowstone volcano spits fumaroles and geysers before it, who knows, erupts under the watchful eye of Henry Heasler National Park geologist and Jamie Farrell's sensors. But certainly closer to the rupture is the San Andreas fault that is tearing the West of the United States… Soon on a geological time scale Los Angeles could be an island off San Francisco.

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