Australia: The Time Traveller's Guide - Episode 4 (ATOM Study Guide)

Series synopsis

Of all continents on earth, none preserve the story of the formation of our planet and the evolution of life quite like Australia. Nowhere else can you simply jump in a car and travel back through the entire history of the world.

Australia: The Time Traveller's Guide takes you on a rollicking adventure from the birth of the earth to the emergence of the world we know today. Buckle up for a rocky ride down the road of time with series host Dr Richard Smith. Over four one-hour episodes, we meet titanic dinosaurs and giant kangaroos, sea monsters and prehistoric crustaceans, disappearing mountains and exploding asteroids. Epic in scope and intimate in nature, this is the untold story of the land down under, the one island continent that has got it all. So join the good doctor for the ultimate outback road trip: an exploration of the history of the planet as seen through the mind-altering window of the Australian continent.

This series consists of four one-hour episodes telling the story of our evolving earth through a geologist visiting important geological sites of Australia.

Curriculum and educational suitability:

• Science
• Geography
• Environment

Episode 4 Synopsis

The final program in the four part series Australia: The Time Traveller's Guide describes Australia's past since the dinosaurs became extinct in the catastrophic end to the Mesozoic.

The story told in this episode of Australia's evolution is the story of endless change: life, climate and location. Seas come and go. Mountains rise and fall. Whole kingdoms of life triumph and disappear. The series final sees us racing down the last 65 million years to the present day. It is in this episode that we reveal the events that have shaped the more obvious features of the continent we now inhabit. In the wake of the catastrophe that saw off the dinosaurs, Australia set off on a lonely voyage in southern seas. This is a story of calamity and conquest; how a conspiracy of climate, biology and geology shaped the land that humans now call home. Taking the long view back allows us to look more clearly forward as our island home rafts steadily northwards and into the storm clouds of change.