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

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of ed ...

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 dramati ...

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 Barc ...

(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 ...

); 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 Ca ...

: 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 t ...

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 in ...

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 ...

; 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 Brian Franklin Atwater (born September 18, 1951) is a geologist who works for the United States Geological Survey and is also a research professor at the University of Washington. Career Atwater has spent much of his career studying the likelihood ...

(

U.S. Geological Survey The United States Geological Survey (USGS), formerly simply known as the Geological Survey, is a scientific agency of the United States government. The scientists of the USGS study the landscape of the United States, its natural resources, and ...

) * 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) * Doug Boyer ( Duke University) * Chris Goldfinger (

Oregon State University Oregon State University (OSU) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant, research university in Corvallis, Oregon. OSU offers more than 200 undergraduate-degree programs along with a variety of graduate and doctoral degree ...

) * 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 (

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 (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 university, private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Sta ...

) * 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, ...

) * Joseph Sertich (

) * Barbara Shelton ( fossil hunter) * Scott Travis (park archaeologist) * Joe Watkins (

National Park Service The National Park Service (NPS) is an List of federal agencies in the United States, agency of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government within the United States Department of the Interior, U.S. Department of ...

) * Lisa White ( UC Museum of Paleontology) * 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'' so ...

)

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=Ma ...

'', "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 dramati ...

'' 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.S ...

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 archi ...

." 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 13 ...

'', 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 spher ...

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

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 nam ...

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 C ...

, where geologists have dated some of the

oldest rock The oldest dated rocks formed on Earth, as an aggregate of minerals that have not been subsequently broken down by erosion or melted, are more than 4 billion years old, formed during the Hadean Eon of Earth's geological history. Meteorites th ...

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

External links

* at th
PBS WebSite
* . * . * .
''Making North America''
at

Amazon.com Amazon.com, Inc. ( ) is an American multinational technology company focusing on e-commerce, cloud computing, online advertising, digital streaming, and artificial intelligence. It has been referred to as "one of the most influential econom ...

*
''Making North America''
– video search on YouTube.
''Making North America''
– video search on

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 v ...

. {{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