- 7 weeks ago
The far south of our planet hides some unexpected mysteries. Antarctica and South America share a surprising resemblance that raises questions about the ancient past of our world. At the same time, the waters beneath South America remain some of the most avoided and challenging on Earth, shaped by forces that are still not fully understood. These distant regions hold clues to dramatic events that shaped the planet and continue to influence it in ways we are only beginning to uncover. Animation is created by Bright Side.
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00:00See how the Antarctic Peninsula looks just like South America, but upside down?
00:05This isn't just a coincidence. It's the ghost of a 30-million-year-old breakup.
00:11These continents were once connected, but their divorce gave birth to an ocean current so powerful,
00:16it was capable of completely freezing Antarctica and shaping its landscape.
00:21Here's how it went down.
00:24Tectonic plates pulled a sneaky move and cracked open a ridiculously narrow passage in the ocean.
00:28About only 500 miles wide, forcing 4.5 trillion cubic feet of water to flow inside this geological straw.
00:37This was the birth of an ocean current stronger than the Amazon River.
00:42This ocean current, called the Antarctic Circumpolar Current, by the way, flows in a circular motion,
00:49going clockwise because of the strong winds that blow over there.
00:52This circular motion around Antarctica caused erosion, shaping the landmass of the continent into a circle,
00:59except for that stubborn peninsula, which is being slowly dragged east like a kid refusing to leave a playground.
01:06Wait, South America and Antarctica used to be one?
01:10Yep, a long time ago, South America, Australia, and Antarctica were all part of a supercontinent,
01:16called Gondwana, which also included Africa at some point.
01:22Back then, South America and Antarctica used to be basically joined at the hip by a land bridge called the Antarctic Land Bridge,
01:30which just so happened to be a lush green forest, and also a great dinosaur highway.
01:35Yeah, you heard it right, dinosaurs.
01:39A 95-million-year-old dino, whose name I can't pronounce, sorry, was discovered in Australia,
01:45and scientists found out it had actually been a distant cousin of Argentina's Sarmiento Soros.
01:52Same jaw, same chiseled teeth, same everything.
01:56These guys were like identical twins, separated by an ocean.
02:00How?
02:00Because back then, Antarctica wasn't a frozen wasteland.
02:05It was a temperate rainforest, like Oregon, making it a pretty nice travel route for a dino family.
02:11But the land bridge wasn't just for dinosaurs.
02:14About 40 million years ago, the ancestors of Australia's marsupials waddled to the land down under all the way from South America,
02:22taking the Antarctica route, another proof that these continents used to be connected.
02:28Things remained somewhat peaceful for the dinos,
02:30and the marsupials, until Earth's ground started moving.
02:34This is what a German scientist called the Continental Drift Theory, back in 1912.
02:40Our German friend here basically looked at the coast of South America and went,
02:44hey, this looks like it could fit into the coast of Africa.
02:48Like a scientific Sherlock Holmes, he noticed what others had overlooked for centuries.
02:53The continents were clearly pieces of a larger puzzle.
02:57And he was right.
02:58Here's the deal.
03:00Planet Earth is made of many layers of rocks and metals, like a cosmic onion.
03:05The outermost layer, the lithosphere, is divided into pretty solid tectonic plates that move atop a layer of softer,
03:12somewhat molten rocks, like slippery ice.
03:15This is why the plates move.
03:18In fact, they've been rearranging Earth's face for billions of years,
03:22with supercontinents forming and breaking apart in cycles, like a slow-motion game of bumper cars.
03:29This movement might be pretty slow since most tectonic plates only move 0 to 3.9 inches every year.
03:37Except for the Nazca plate, racing ahead at 7.8 inches, about as fast as your hair grows.
03:43But don't let their snail's face fool you.
03:46These shifting slabs are the ultimate planet shapers.
03:49Their slow dance gives us everything from earthquakes that build mountains, like the Himalayas,
03:55to rifts that birth oceans, like the Atlantic.
03:57All because the oceanic crust is dense and sinks like a stone,
04:02while continental crust floats like a cork.
04:06It's this density difference that explains why continents exist at all.
04:10Without it, Earth would be completely covered by shallow seas.
04:15This slow-motion planetary renovation project is exactly what tore South America and Antarctica apart 30 million years ago.
04:23The plates under these continents started to drift apart in a process called crustal extension.
04:30It's like the lithosphere was pizza dough being slowly stretched until it thins and splits.
04:35As the crust stretched, it became thinner and weaker,
04:39eventually cracking like the surface of a drying lake bed.
04:43This whole thing gave birth to a new tectonic plate, the Scotia plate,
04:46that emerged between South America and Antarctica, like a geological divorce lawyer.
04:52For a while, parts of this plate stayed above water as the last gasp of the Antarctic land bridge.
04:58It was Earth's version of that one thread still connecting your hoodie after the zipper breaks.
05:04These final connections might have persisted as chains of islands,
05:08but just like that fraying hoodie, the connection couldn't last forever.
05:11Eventually, this small but mighty plate became the final nail in the coffin of the land bridge connecting the two continents.
05:18Just like all the tectonic plates, this one was also on the move.
05:23As it expanded eastward, it opened a new passage of water called the Drake Passage,
05:29slowly covering the Antarctic land bridge with ocean water.
05:32The process was like pulling open elevator doors, at first just a crack,
05:37then wider and wider until the connection was completely broken.
05:41This geographical divorce had chilling consequences.
05:45The new Drake Passage allowed the Antarctic circumpolar current to form,
05:50creating an endless loop of cold water that isolated Antarctica,
05:53shaped its land, and even cooled the entire planet.
05:56This current acts like a wall around Antarctica,
06:00blocking warm water and invasive species while regulating global climate.
06:05Eventually, Antarctica turned into an icebox that is 98% covered in ice sheets,
06:11and that holds about 61% of Earth's freshwater.
06:16Nowadays, this continent holds the title of the windiest, driest, and iciest place on Earth.
06:21It's a frozen desert, where temperatures plunge below negative 128.6 degrees Fahrenheit,
06:28cold enough to freeze your breath mid-air.
06:32A layer of ice there can be more than a mile thick,
06:34and it expands even further in winter to cover an area larger than the continental United States.
06:41Today, if you want to travel to Antarctica,
06:44the quickest sea route is through the Drake Passage,
06:46a 500-mile-wide body of water that is narrow enough for the winds to scream across thousands of miles,
06:53transforming into monstrous waves that can tower up to 49 feet,
06:58though calm days create waves only 13 to 16 feet high,
07:03still twice as tall as Atlantic waves, mind you.
07:07This is probably why sailors call this stretch of ocean the Drake Shake.
07:11But tectonic movement isn't just about shifting continents.
07:16It's Earth's ultimate life support system.
07:19You see, about half of our planet's heat comes from radioactive decay in the core.
07:24Thanks, Uranium-235.
07:26Something like nature's nuclear reactor.
07:29This heat is behind everything from volcanoes to the very plate motion
07:33that once connected Antarctica to South America.
07:36And it only comes out of the core because of tectonic movement.
07:40Without this internal heat engine, Earth would be just like Mars.
07:46When the plates move and release heat,
07:49they also release CO2 gases into the atmosphere,
07:52regulating the temperature of our planet.
07:54And when the plates move underwater,
07:57they take a lot of this CO2 back to Earth's interior,
08:00recycling all this gas.
08:02This is why the plates can change our air, climate,
08:06and even the evolution of life itself just by moving around.
08:10But billions of years ago, these plates were not moving around.
08:14Back then, it was like Earth was wearing a solid ceramic shell with many cracks.
08:20But even without tectonic movement,
08:22the heat managed to escape through these cracks
08:24in a process called
08:25stagnant lid tectonics,
08:28kick-starting all life on Earth.
08:30And no, tectonic movement is not a thing of the past.
08:34Earthquakes are the living proof that it is not just happening today,
08:38but might repeat again on a more dramatic scale in the future.
08:42You see, to form supercontinents like Pangaea,
08:46smaller megacontinents have to dive beneath another.
08:49And scientists predict that a similar process
08:52might create a new supercontinent
08:54called Pangaea Proxima in 250 million years.
08:58By then, humans might be extinct or living on Mars,
09:02but Earth's tectonic dance will continue,
09:05even without us.
09:07Not bad for something that moves more slowly than a traffic jam.
09:11Turns out,
09:12Antarctica and South America
09:14used to be BFFs,
09:16before all that tectonic drama split them up,
09:19like a messy breakup that literally froze one of them out.
09:22Now, they just awkwardly mirror each other from across the Drake Passage.
09:27Classic X's.
09:29There's a stretch of water
09:30that even the most experienced explorers fear.
09:33No matter what season you choose to cross it in,
09:36you risk meeting face-to-face
09:38with waves that can reach as tall as the Hollywood sign.
09:41I'm talking about the Drake Passage,
09:44the waterway connecting the Pacific Ocean
09:46to the Atlantic Ocean,
09:48stretching from Cape Horn
09:50at South America's southernmost tip
09:52to Antarctica's South Shetland Islands.
09:55It's about as wide as the distance from London to Berlin
09:58and takes up to 48 hours to cross.
10:01Some sailors compare getting on the other side
10:04to going to the moon.
10:05That's how challenging it is.
10:07Even the man who discovered it, Sir Francis Drake,
10:10never sailed these waters
10:11because they seemed too dangerous to him
10:14and opted for a calmer,
10:15although longer,
10:17Strait of Magellan.
10:18The passage took the lives of around 20,000 sailors
10:21and over 800 ships.
10:24Tourists who want to see Antarctica
10:25cross the Drake Passage on a regular basis,
10:28although it's still often called
10:30the world's most terrifying ocean crossing.
10:34The Antarctic Peninsula,
10:36where travelers go,
10:37isn't really part of Antarctica itself.
10:40It sticks out and points towards South America
10:43like two fingers,
10:44almost touching it.
10:45The water gets squeezed between these two landmasses,
10:49making strong ocean currents.
10:51The passage is part of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current,
10:55the largest ocean current on Earth.
10:57The water rushes through the passage
10:59at a speed between 95 and 150 million cubic meters per second,
11:05which makes it rougher.
11:07And then there are winds that usually blow from west to east
11:10and are very strong between 40 and 60 degrees latitude.
11:14That's why those areas are called the Roaring Forties,
11:18Furious Fifties,
11:19and Screaming Sixties.
11:22Land slows down winds,
11:23which is why storms hitting Ireland and the UK
11:25get weaker as they move east.
11:27But Drake's latitude is the only place
11:30where winds can blow all around the Earth
11:32without being stopped by land.
11:35So they keep getting faster.
11:37These strong winds turn into huge waves
11:40that can hit ships really hard,
11:42normally around 13 to 16 feet tall.
11:46They're much higher than waves in the Atlantic.
11:49Drake Passage also has underwater mountains
11:52that you can't see.
11:53The huge current squeezes through this narrow passage
11:57and causes waves to crash
11:59against these mountains underwater.
12:01These internal waves create whirls
12:04that bring cold water up from the deep ocean.
12:06So it's not just rough on the surface,
12:09the water is wild all the way down.
12:12The first sailor managed to sail around Cape Horn
12:15and through the Drake Passage in 1616.
12:18It was a Dutch navigator,
12:20Willem Schouten, in 1616.
12:22But the most famous attempt to cross it
12:24was undertaken by Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton
12:27on his ship named Endurance.
12:30He and 27 of his men set off from South Georgia,
12:33aiming to reach Vassal Bay in Antarctica.
12:36But things didn't go as planned.
12:39On January 19, 1915,
12:42their ship got stuck in the ice.
12:44And by October, it began to sink.
12:47They camped on floating ice for two months
12:50before sailing lifeboats to a remote,
12:52icy place called Elephant Island.
12:55Shackleton and five men made a risky journey
12:58to South Georgia to get help.
13:00It took them 15 days to cross Drake Passage
13:03with hurricane winds.
13:05Finally, they arrived safely
13:07and organized a rescue for the rest of their crew.
13:10Scientists found the shipwreck of Endurance
13:12only in 2022,
13:1410,000 feet below the water.
13:16In December of 2019,
13:20six fearless athletes decided to cross the Drake Passage
13:23by rowing a boat for the first time in history.
13:27It took them 12 days of non-stop rowing
13:30with a 90-minute rotation of rowers.
13:33They managed to do it
13:34and it was probably the hardest possible way
13:37to cross the passage.
13:38The athletes mentioned it was cold, wet, and dirty,
13:42and the waves hit them like walls.
13:45The weather in the Drake Passage changes a lot,
13:48but ship captains can always see it coming
13:50and change their path.
13:52They will move the departure time
13:53to have a safety margin
13:54and not to get stuck in the middle of the passage
13:56in the worst possible conditions.
13:59Sometimes, the journey will be smooth and calm,
14:02and they call it Drake Lake.
14:04Other times, people on the ship will feel rough waves,
14:07which is called Drake Shake.
14:09Some experienced captains who often cross the passage
14:12say that the Drake Lake effect
14:14happens once in every 10 crossings,
14:17and they see the Drake Shake once or twice
14:20in every 10 journeys.
14:22A schooner or a kayak
14:24will probably not survive the journey among giant waves,
14:27but modest vessels and cruise ships
14:29have sturdy hulls
14:30and advanced stabilizing mechanisms.
14:33So, the journey isn't that dangerous anymore,
14:36but still, it's quite an adventure,
14:38especially if you're seasick.
14:41If you don't feel like risking it,
14:42but want to travel from the Pacific Ocean
14:44to the Atlantic Ocean by water the fast way,
14:47the Panama Canal is waiting for you.
14:50People first started thinking about making a water path
14:52across Panama in the 16th century.
14:55Back then, a Spanish explorer found out
14:57that only a thin piece of land separated the two oceans,
15:01but it seemed impossible to build it
15:03because of the mountains and thick jungle,
15:05so the idea had to wait a couple of centuries.
15:09Finally, in 1880,
15:11France, led by the man who built the Suez Canal in Egypt,
15:15tried to make the canal,
15:16but the people who started the construction
15:18soon found out it was much harder than it looked on a map.
15:22The land in Panama was one of the toughest
15:25and most dangerous places to dig a big waterway.
15:29Workers had to literally move huge mountains
15:31in a jungle full of snakes where it was really hot and rainy.
15:36During the wet season,
15:38heavy rain turned rivers into wild rapids
15:40and soaked the workers.
15:42Sometimes, they didn't see the sun for two weeks
15:45and their clothes stayed wet all the time.
15:48Big rocks were falling
15:49and tiny mosquitoes that carried malaria
15:51made people very sick.
15:54And then, an earthquake happened on top of everything.
15:57They were losing thousands of people.
15:59That's why France decided to abandon the project
16:01after seven years.
16:03Then, the United States bought the French assets
16:06in the canal zone and finished it by 1914.
16:10It cost the U.S. around $375 million.
16:14The 50-mile-long passage of water
16:16saves ships traveling between New York and San Francisco
16:197,872 miles.
16:23Around 14,000 ships use it every year
16:26and pay around $1.8 million in tolls.
16:30So, it looks like it all paid off.
16:33Another challenging waterway in this part of the world
16:36is the Amazon River.
16:38It's around 4,300 miles long
16:40and flows through three countries
16:42with over 30 million people living in its basin.
16:46But there isn't a single bridge across it.
16:49The river has many marshes and soft soils,
16:51so engineers would need to build very long bridges
16:54and very deep foundations, which costs a lot of money.
16:59Building bridges over deep water is tough,
17:01but in other places in the world,
17:03engineers can use things like floating platforms to help.
17:07The river's path and water levels
17:08change a lot during the year.
17:11During the dry season from June to November,
17:13the river is usually 2 to 6 miles wide.
17:17But in the wet season from December to April,
17:19the river can become as wide as 30 miles.
17:23And the water level can rise by 50 feet.
17:26That's why they can't build floating bridges or pontoons.
17:29The riverbanks are made of soft dirt
17:31that moves and erodes with the seasons,
17:34and it makes things even harder.
17:37It would have to be an absolutely unique project
17:39to overcome all these challenges.
17:42Luckily, there's no pressing need
17:44for a bridge across the Amazon right now.
17:46The river mostly goes through areas
17:48that are sparsely populated,
17:50so there aren't so many major roads
17:52to be connected by bridges.
17:55That's it for today.
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