''Making North America'' is a 2015 American documentary film which premiered nationwide on November 4, 2015. The PBS

Nova A nova (plural novae or novas) is a transient astronomical event that causes the sudden appearance of a bright, apparently "new" star (hence the name "nova", which is Latin for "new") that slowly fades over weeks or months. Causes of the dramat ...

film, comprising three episodes of one hour each, was hosted by

Kirk Johnson Kirk Cyron Johnson (born June 29, 1972) is a Canadian former professional boxer who competed from 1993 to 2010, and challenged once for the WBA heavyweight title in 2002. Amateur career Johnson represented Canada at the 1992 Olympics in Bar ...

(Director of the Smithsonian

National Museum of Natural History The National Museum of Natural History is a natural history museum administered by the Smithsonian Institution, located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., United States. It has free admission and is open 364 days a year. In 2021, with 7. ...

); Peter Oxley directed the first episode while Gwyn Williams directed the second and third. The series describes the very beginnings and later developments of the

North American continent North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...

: from the origin of planet Earth 4.54 billion years ago; to the various movements of

tectonic plates Plate tectonics (from the la, label=Late Latin, tectonicus, from the grc, τεκτονικός, lit=pertaining to building) is the generally accepted scientific theory that considers the Earth's lithosphere to comprise a number of large ...

and their effect on the sculpturing of the continent's land and mountains, including the

Rocky Mountains The Rocky Mountains, also known as the Rockies, are a major mountain range and the largest mountain system in North America. The Rocky Mountains stretch in straight-line distance from the northernmost part of western Canada, to New Mexico ...

Yellowstone Yellowstone National Park is an American national park located in the western United States, largely in the northwest corner of Wyoming and extending into Montana and Idaho. It was established by the 42nd U.S. Congress with the Yellow ...

and the

Grand Canyon The Grand Canyon (, yuf-x-yav, Wi:kaʼi:la, , Southern Paiute language: Paxa’uipi, ) is a steep-sided canyon carved by the Colorado River in Arizona, United States. The Grand Canyon is long, up to wide and attains a depth of over a m ...

; to the emergence of life on the continent and its later

evolution Evolution is change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. These characteristics are the expressions of genes, which are passed on from parent to offspring during reproduction. Variation ...

; and, finally, to the more recent settlement of the land by humans. According to Johnson, "Most people will not have considered a time when there was no North America ... What was there before North America? How did it form? When did it start? How did it come together?"

Episodes

Participants

The documentary film is narrated by Kirk Johnson and includes the following participants (alphabetized by last name): * Brian Atwater ( U.S. Geological Survey) * Doug Bamforth (

University of Colorado The University of Colorado (CU) is a system of public universities in Colorado. It consists of four institutions: University of Colorado Boulder, University of Colorado Colorado Springs, University of Colorado Denver, and the University o ...

) * Chuck Bonner (

fossil hunter Fossil collecting (sometimes, in a non-scientific sense, fossil hunting) is the Collecting, collection of fossils for scientific study, hobby, or profit. Fossil collecting, as practiced by amateurs, is the predecessor of modern paleontology a ...

) * Doug Boyer (

Duke University Duke University is a private research university in Durham, North Carolina. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco and electric power industrialist Jam ...

) * Chris Goldfinger (

Oregon State University Oregon State University (OSU) is a public land-grant, research university in Corvallis, Oregon. OSU offers more than 200 undergraduate-degree programs along with a variety of graduate and doctoral degrees. It has the 10th largest engineering ...

) * Carrie Howard (lead preparator) *

(narrator and Director of the
Smithsonian

) * David Loope (

seismologist Seismology (; from Ancient Greek σεισμός (''seismós'') meaning "earthquake" and -λογία (''-logía'') meaning "study of") is the scientific study of earthquakes and the propagation of elastic waves through the Earth or through other ...

) *

Tyler Lyson Tyler R. Lyson (born 1982 or 1983) is an American paleontologist. He is the discoverer of the dinosaur fossil Dakota, a fossilized mummified hadrosaur. He has done significant research on the evolution of turtles and on the rise of mammals after th ...

(

Denver Museum of Nature & Science The Denver Museum of Nature & Science is a municipal natural history and science museum in Denver, Colorado. It is a resource for informal science education in the Rocky Mountain region. A variety of exhibitions, programs, and activities help mus ...

) * Patrick Mahaffy (homeowner) * Cameron McLean (exploration manager) *

David R. Montgomery David R. Montgomery is a Professor of Earth and Space Sciences at the University of Washington in Seattle, where he is a member of the Quaternary Research Center. Montgomery received his B.S. in geology from Stanford University in 1984, and hi ...

(author, ''The Hidden Half of Nature'') * A. B. Olevic (project superintendent) * Bob Patten (author/

flintknapper Knapping is the shaping of flint, chert, obsidian, or other conchoidal fracturing stone through the process of lithic reduction to manufacture stone tools, strikers for flintlock firearms, or to produce flat-faced stones for building or faci ...

) * Noah Planavsky (

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the w ...

) * Pamela Reid (

University of Miami The University of Miami (UM, UMiami, Miami, U of M, and The U) is a private research university in Coral Gables, Florida. , the university enrolled 19,096 students in 12 colleges and schools across nearly 350 academic majors and programs, i ...

) * Joseph Sertich (

) * Barbara Shelton (

) * Scott Travis (park

archaeologist Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landsca ...

) * Joe Watkins (

National Park Service The National Park Service (NPS) is an agency of the United States federal government within the U.S. Department of the Interior that manages all national parks, most national monuments, and other natural, historical, and recreational properti ...

) * Lisa White (

UC Museum of Paleontology The University of California Museum of Paleontology (UCMP) is a paleontology museum located on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley. The museum is within the Valley Life Sciences Building (VLSB), designed by George W. Kelham and ...

) * Emily Wolin (

geophysicist Geophysics () is a subject of natural science concerned with the physical processes and physical properties of the Earth and its surrounding space environment, and the use of quantitative methods for their analysis. The term ''geophysics'' som ...

)

Reception

According to

James Gaines James Gaines, birth name James Larry M. Gaines Jr., is a character actor, singer, musician, writer, director and producer born on May 18, in Maui, Hawaii. He was sometimes also credited as Jaimes Gaines, Jim Gaines, and James Gainers. Career ...

, film reviewer for ''

LiveScience Live Science is a science news website run by Future via Purch, which it purchased from Imaginova in 2009. Stories and editorial commentary are typically syndicated to major news outlets, such as Yahoo!, MSNBC, AOL, and Fox News.{{fact, date=Marc ...

'', "North America rocks. That’s what a new three-part series from ''

NOVA A nova (plural novae or novas) is a transient astronomical event that causes the sudden appearance of a bright, apparently "new" star (hence the name "nova", which is Latin for "new") that slowly fades over weeks or months. Causes of the dramat ...

'' shows as it explores the rich history of the continent — from

glacier A glacier (; ) is a persistent body of dense ice that is constantly moving under its own weight. A glacier forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its ablation over many years, often centuries. It acquires distinguishing features, such a ...

s in

Alaska Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U ...

to volcanoes in Hawaii to the crystal-clear waters of the

Bahamas The Bahamas (), officially the Commonwealth of The Bahamas, is an island country within the Lucayan Archipelago of the West Indies in the North Atlantic. It takes up 97% of the Lucayan Archipelago's land area and is home to 88% of the a ...

." Joanne Ostrow, television critic for the ''

Denver Post ''The Denver Post'' is a daily newspaper and website published in Denver, Colorado. As of June 2022, it has an average print circulation of 57,265. In 2016, its website received roughly six million monthly unique visitors generating more than 1 ...

'', writes, "Thanks to innovative special effects and graphics, this dose of

earth science Earth science or geoscience includes all fields of natural science related to the planet Earth. This is a branch of science dealing with the physical, chemical, and biological complex constitutions and synergistic linkages of Earth's four sphere ...

is visually engaging ... The graphics let us see how a slab of ocean floor diving under the earth forced the land up ... Johnson

he narrator He or HE may refer to: Language * He (pronoun), an English pronoun * He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ * He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets * He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' in ...

is enthusiastic good company, a regular guy whether rappelling into the

, flying over an active volcano in Hawaii, hunting for

fossil A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved ...

s in

where

palm tree The Arecaceae is a family of perennial flowering plants in the monocot order Arecales. Their growth form can be climbers, shrubs, tree-like and stemless plants, all commonly known as palms. Those having a tree-like form are called palm tr ...

s once flourished, or descending into the

palladium Palladium is a chemical element with the symbol Pd and atomic number 46. It is a rare and lustrous silvery-white metal discovered in 1803 by the English chemist William Hyde Wollaston. He named it after the asteroid Pallas, which was itself ...

mines of

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...

, where geologists have dated some of the oldest rock ever found in North America ... there's much to learn from this series and, thanks to rock-solid storytelling, it's mind-blowing but easy to grasp."

References

Dailymotion Dailymotion is a French video-sharing technology platform owned by Vivendi. North American launch partners included Vice Media, Bloomberg and Hearst Digital Media. It is among the earliest known platforms to support HD (720p) resolution vid ...

. {{DEFAULTSORT:Making North America 2015 American television episodes 2015 television films 2015 films 2015 documentary films American documentary television films Nova (American TV program) episodes 2010s American films

Episodes

Participants

Reception

See also

References

External links