
Explore our planet’s history from the beginning
Latest Episodes
Nearly 30 years ago, one paper claimed to find the oldest evidence for life on Earth. How does that evidence hold up in 2025? Are these fossils or duds? Don’t panic, we’ll answer these questions to life, the universe, and everything in due time. Along the way, we’ll meet the most abundant mineral in the human body, an important fertilizer, and finish a trilogy of intense debates over a small Greenland isle.
Extra Credit: Read The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, eat cake with sprinkles, and make sure to floss afterwards.
In 1971, two geologists traveled to the edge of Greenland's ice sheet. What they found were the oldest rocks known at the time, 3.8-3.7 billion years old.
Shockingly, they were in decent condition, sparking a half-century of geology stories. Today we'll begin our tour of Isua, the final destination of Season 2. Along the way, we'll meet a Holocaust survivor who landed on top of the world, visit an iron mine surrounded by glaciers, and start to meet the highest-quality rocks of this season.
Extra Credit: Eat some candy, some shrimp, or some Indian food.
What is the world's oldest slice of mantle, and how did it reach the surface?
Today, we'll meet the first tangible piece of the world below the crust, a world humans still have not visited. Along the way, we'll meet an old mineral friend from Season 1, a researcher named Friend, and learn how diamonds can be a geologist's best friend when looking for slices of the mantle.
Extra Credit: Clean your bathtub, or call an old friend.