Oldest and Newest Places on Earth (2025)

[bunniefuu]

When I was a kid,

I had this globe next to my bed,

And when I couldn't sleep,

sometimes I'd turn it on

And just kinda explore the world,

Feel the mountains

and the ocean floors,

The country borders,

the lakes and seas.

It was all very interesting to me.

And I couldn't help but wonder

why it looked this way.

Did it always look like this?

Did it once look different?

Why does Madagascar look like

somebody chiseled it off of Africa?

For that matter,

why does Africa's west coast

Have almost the exact same outline

as South America's east coast?

Why is there a ridge

on the ocean floor

That follows the same path

almost exactly halfway between 'em?

I began to see the world

as a bunch of puzzle pieces

That came together

to be what it is today.

I didn't know how

these things happened.

I didn't know why.

Nobody had ever said anything

to me about plate tectonics,

But I inherently knew about it

Because of the hours I spent

staring at this globe.

And I think this might have been

One of those formative

experiences for me,

Just made me think differently

about the Earth and geology.

And later when I did learn

about plate tectonics

And the billions of years

that it's been going on,

Well, that only added

to the fascination.

A few years back,

I traveled to Sedona, Arizona.

I found myself marveling

at the rock formations

And pondering

the millions of years of wind

It took to carve that out,

just one grain of sand at a time.

People talk about Sedona

being a spiritual place.

But I can't even argue with that

Because it forces you to think

on unfathomable timescales,

And it kinda breaks your brain.

While at the same time,

in volcanic areas around the world,

New rock is produced every day

in sudden and violent outbursts.

Rock that later becomes fertile soil

and explodes with life.

We live on an ancient planet

that's constantly remaking itself,

And that's a concept I've

always wanted to explore.

So somewhere along the way,

an idea got embedded in my brain.

What if instead of talking about it,

I actually went to the places

that best illustrated that?

What could I learn?

What kind of story would that tell?

What if I traveled to the oldest

and newest places on planet Earth?

This is my producer, Cooper,

And I'm about

to wreck his world.

This is the face of someone

Who just wasted

three months of his life.

Three months that he

had spent planning

A very complicated trip

to Australia.

Because in 2014,

it was reported

That researchers had

found zircon crystals

In the Jack Hills of Australia

Dating back to

4.4 billion years old,

Making these the oldest rocks

on planet Earth.

There was just one catch.

These crystals are

literally microscopic.

And we had certain parameters

with this project.

One, it has to be

rock that I can stand on.

That's the gag here.

I stand on the oldest

and newest rocks.

Two, it has to be

a natural formation,

Not behind a case in

some museum somewhere.

That's too easy.

And too hard

I'd probably get arrested.

And three, it has

to originate from Earth

And be the result of

some geologic process.

So, some meteorite fragment

that's as old as the solar system,

That doesn't count.

Now, I knew that the zircons

were too small to stand on,

But I assumed the rocks

that they were found in

Would be just as old, right?

Right?

So in 2023,

we made preparations

To visit the Jack Hills

in Western Australia,

Which is super remote,

super inhospitable, not near a road.

This was gonna require working

with an outfitter and a guide.

We needed satellite phone.

This was a whole thing.

And just to be thorough,

I thought I could

interview the geologist

A geologist from UC Boulder

named Dr. Steven Mojzsis.

And amazingly, he responded.

He says the Jack Hills zircons

Are the oldest minerals

on Earth.

While it is true that they're

upwards of 4.38 billion years old,

They're weathered from older rocks

as sedimentary detritus,

And a younger assemblage that

occupied a sedimentary basin.

- He's speaking like a scientist here.

- Right, right.

- Around 3.3 billion years ago.

- Right.

So the rock itself is

3.3 billion years.

Yeah, that's

what I was reading.

Yeah. So he said that's

That is still a long time ago,

but not the oldest place on Earth.

...Yeah.

What I was asking him was like,

is it Pilbara or Jack Hills?

- And he was like, neither.

- Kinda.

Yeah, we were looking

in the wrong place.

According to Dr. Mojzsis,

The actual place that

we're looking for was called

The Acasta Gneiss Complex

in far north Canada.

So instead of going down here,

We are actually needing

to go way up here.

It's not the same place.

And unlike the Jack Hills,

Where you can just kinda drive

most of the way out to it,

The Acasta Gneiss Complex

Is in the middle of

absolute nowhere.

There are no roads for

hundreds of kilometers,

And the landscape is insane.

It's on the edge of a lake,

But the area is dotted with

literally thousands of lakes.

The only defining feature is

an island in the middle of it

That kinda looks

a little bit like Snoopy.

In fact, the geologists

call it "Snoopy Island".

I cannot tell you

how many hours I spent

Scouring the maps

looking for Snoopy Island.

It was like a hellish geological

version of Where's Waldo.

So our plans had to change.

Drastically.

And since it was

approaching fall,

The temperatures in the area

Were already dipping into

fairly dangerous territory, so...

We were gonna have

to wait another year.

This was not the last thing

that went wrong.

So while Cooper began looking

Into how exactly we get

to this new location,

I began considering

the "newest" rocks on Earth.

I'll be honest, this choice was

always a bit arbitrary

Because technically new land

is being created all the time

In volcanic hotspots

around the world,

Of which there are currently 46,

According to the Smithsonian's

Global Volcanism Program.

And there's no shortage

of young land masses

Created by these volcanic

hotspots around the world,

Any of which would work, but...

When it came down to it,

one stood out amongst all the rest:

The Big Island of Hawaii.

Not only is the Big Island

only half a million years old,

It's almost always erupting.

Plus it's a US state.

So there was no language barrier,

no currency exchange.

There's an infrastructure

and a national park right there,

And besides, it's freaking Hawaii.

Who wouldn't want to go there?

So, Hawaii it would be.

With our locations chosen,

the team went to work

Planning out our

epic adventure in 2023.

Nothing was gonna stop us

this time.

In the summer of 2023,

Just as we started

finalizing our plans,

A massive wave of wildfires

swept across Canada.

The smoke from these fires drifted

over the northern United States,

Blanketing many major US cities.

It quickly became

international news.

Just devastating fires

That are clearly linked to

human-caused climate change.

But the scale of

the human impact in Canada

Is quite concerning.

There's many fires

burning at once,

And some of them are further north

than we would typically expect.

So more so into the tundra,

which is very uncommon.

And right in the middle of it

was the town of Yellowknife,

Which was the closest town

to the outcrop

And where we were planning to stay.

It also was the home

Of the Northwest Territories

Geological Survey,

Who had helped us out

tremendously with our planning.

All of our plans were on hold

As we waited

for the fires to subside.

But that didn't happen.

In fact, it only got worse.

By mid-August,

two major fires had reached

The outskirts of Yellowknife,

and the order was given to evacuate.

My contacts at the Geological Survey

suddenly became unavailable

As they and the other

20,000 people in Yellowknife

Fled for their lives.

Over the next couple of weeks,

Through a combination

of human intervention

And just dumb luck,

the winds changed,

The fires were diverted,

and the town was saved.

But Yellowknife was pretty much

a ghost town at that point.

It would take months for

the residents to trickle back in

And for the town to

become functional again.

And by that point,

Our opportunity was

pretty much gone.

By the way, you might

remember that in 2023,

Hawaii suffered through

some devastating wildfires,

Especially on the island of Maui,

Where 102 people died

in the town of Lahaina.

So yeah, both places we

wanted to go to were on fire.

In the spring of 2024,

one of my contacts

From the Northwest Territories

Geological Survey

Put me in touch with this guy.

This is Jesse Reimink,

a geologist from Penn State

And co-host of

the PlanetGeo Podcast

And just happens to be

one of the world's top experts

In the Acasta Gneiss Complex.

And it just so happened

That he was planning

another trip in July

With this guy.

This is Mike Ackerson.

He's a geologist with

the Smithsonian Institution,

Who's leading a team of

researchers, including Jesse,

To study the outcrop.

And to our utter

shock and surprise,

They invited us to join them.

This... was actually happening.

After three years of missteps

and natural disasters,

We had just a few weeks

to plan the journey of a lifetime.

We'll be flying from Dallas

to Denver to Calgary

To Yellowknife in

the Northwest Territories.

Then we'll have to

charter a float plane

To fly out to the outcrop,

for a total of four flights

And 4,500 kilometers

3000 miles.

With me will be Cooper,

who somehow didn't leave the project

After the Australian mishap.

We've got

our boarding tickets,

Which I printed out

because I have flight anxiety,

And my passport,

and they have to be in my hands

The entire time

or I lose my mind.

Hi, I'm Cooper, field producer.

Cooper, what are you hoping

to get out of this trip?

Outside of just

good footage and stuff?

Paid!

I don't know,

the sense of adventure.

I think it's really cool

in the fact that we're going to

...such a unique space.

I feel like it's kinda like

going to the Moon on Earth

Or like the bottom of the ocean.

It's like the nth degree

of something, you know?

And he's bringing along Kyle,

Our director of photography

and cameraman.

Kyle's got plenty of travel

documentary experience,

And we've worked on several

projects with him in the past.

Well, it's so great

to go somewhere

For that... exploratory purpose.

To be there with the Smithsonian.

- But this is like...

- This is out there.

Yeah. I was actually thinking,

you were talking about

Getting like a guide through a city

or something like that.

We're getting guides through time.

Yeah.

Like the geologists

are like gonna guide us

Through the history of the Earth.

In the oldest place

that exists on planet Earth.

I mean, like...

I'm kinda having trouble

even processing that sometimes.

You should travel with the best.

Oh, that is hot!

Scalding.

This is where I flip my sh*t!

Oh, hi. Welcome to Canada.

- What time is it?

- It's 11:30.

11:30, sun's still out.

Here we go!

Welcome to Yellowknife.

It's 1 am.

Over the last 36 hours,

I've been traveling for

about 25 of those hours?

Counting the vacation

that I had before this.

So, I'm pretty much spent.

Completely bloody exhausted.

But, I'm glad to be here,

And it's been a hell of a day.

One thing that stood out

as we were flying

From Calgary to Yellowknife

On a prop engine plane,

which was cool,

Was that at one point,

I thought that we were

flying into fog.

Like, it looked like low lying fog,

Like you just couldn't

see the ground anymore.

And then we wound up

flying through it,

And it was only then that

I could smell the smoke.

And I realized, oh...

That's not fog, that's smoke.

Those are wildfires.

I spotted two

on my side of the plane.

Cooper spotted he said

up to seven or eight

On his side of the plane.

This was the very thing

That kept us from

coming here last year,

And they're still happening?

I'm not gonna make this

about climate change.

I'm not, I'm not gonna make

this about climate change.

But today was a really long day.

Tomorrow's gonna be

a little bit lighter.

We're just kind of

exploring Yellowknife.

So I'm gonna close

these blackout curtains

That are clearly required

in this town

And get myself some sleep.

Our first day in Yellowknife

Was really all about

orienting ourselves

And locking down the plans

for the rest of the trip.

Not to mention trying

poutine for the first time

And eating the biggest

egg roll on the planet.

Also, maybe the hottest

egg roll on the planet.

Yellowknife sits at the top

of the Great sl*ve Lake,

And chances are,

if you've heard of it,

It's from the show

Ice Road Truckers,

Which as somebody who's lived

his whole life in Texas,

The idea that it gets so cold

that you can drive on top of a lake

Is insane to me.

Even ice skating on top

of a lake is insane to me.

But that's in the winter.

And this is July,

and it's actually kinda balmy.

Wave hi, boys.

So we're going down to

Old Town, Yellowknife,

Which is right by the bay,

which as we get closer,

The temperature has dropped

15 degrees, you think?

- Yep, I'd say that.

- It's...

- Like a microclimate.

- It's super nice here.

I wish we were hanging out

here the whole time.

In the summer months,

Instead of catering

to Ice Road Truckers,

The main attraction here

is hunting and fishing

And just the beauty of

Old Town Yellowknife.

And there are many places

to fish up here.

On the flight in,

I was just mesmerized

by the landscape,

Watching the fields

and forests around Calgary

Slowly change into

the endless vista of rock

Dotted by countless

thousands of lakes.

Like I'd seen it on maps,

but it still hadn't prepared me

For what it was like to

actually see it from a plane.

It was bizarre,

even alien-looking to me.

But it was only when I was

on the ground in Yellowknife

That it really sunk in.

Everything is rock.

The empty field outside my hotel

is just a field of rock.

People don't have yards

in front of their house.

They just have rock.

Highways don't have shoulders.

It's just rock.

Hey, you wanna have

a little garden?

Maybe grow a little

squash or strawberries?

Well, you can't

'cause it's all rock!

And I'm not saying "rocks".

I'm using the singular on purpose.

It's like the entire area

is on top of one giant rock.

It's like somebody

just etched a town

Into the top of a giant boulder.

Which made me wonder...

What kind of people lived here?

What culture was formed

On top of the oldest

rocks in the world?

Luckily there was a place

right down the road

Where we could find out.

On the way.

Boom!

About 100 kilometers

northwest of Yellowknife

Sits the town of Behchok,

The seat of government

for the Tch people.

The Tch are

a First Nations tribe

Whose name translates

to "Dogrib",

And in 2005, they negotiated

A landmark treaty with

the Canadian government

That gave them full autonomy

over their land.

This isn't the Tch "reservation".

This is the Tch Nation.

And I had the honor of meeting

with one of the people

Dr. John Zoe.

Dr. Zoe was heavily involved

in researching and reestablishing

The traditional Tch

place names on their land,

Essentially removing

the westernized names

That were brought in

by the European settlers

And fur traders and miners

Over the last

couple hundred years.

How far back do those go,

those names?

Like, you said

thousands of years earlier.

- Like do you know specifically?

- Yeah.

How far back?

Well, I would say,

at the time of giant animals.

And... that's why

the first set of place names

Is the oldest, that had to do

With where the larger animals

would dwell.

You talking about like

mammoths and mastodons?

Well, it's we just

call them large animals.

And one of the things

that we got to know is...

That our landscape holds

Probably the oldest rock

in the world.

We were debating about

what can we do in a community,

So that we don't forget

our own history?

And they say, "Well...

well go back on the land.

That's the only way to do it."

And so,

almost every step we make,

There was a story.

There were old campgrounds.

There's burial sites.

And there's place names galore.

Now to a westerner,

All this removing of

European influence

Might come off as unnecessary

or even vengeful or performative.

But as Dr. Zoe explained,

it's a lot more important than that.

Language is

very important because...

It takes us back to the source

Of what we're accustomed to.

And we just need to reapply it

So that we continue it

in today's modern world,

- Using the original terms.

- Mm.

Rather than relying too much

On describing...

Something that cannot

be described...

- In your own world.

- Mhm.

Except for your own world.

And it's a link back

to their oldest ancestors.

The very history of their people

can be found in their place names.

By just hearing the name,

You knew it was a place

where you could find trout,

Or wood for canoes,

or beaver pelts,

Or the right stones

for knives and weapons.

These names made it possible

To navigate the vast

and insane landscape

Of the Canadian Shield.

On that note, could I get you

to say something in your language?

I don't know

I don't wanna give you

something to say necessarily,

But I'd love to hear it.

And it's funny

'cause I'm sitting here

And I'm thinking about, you know,

looking at it from above,

How complex all this is,

But when you're...

At you know, in it...

How do you navigate that?

A lot of it is from memory.

Like through storytelling.

I mean, it makes sense.

Yeah, so it

Each place name has

Is really a story of...

- Right.

- What's available in that area

And the method of harvesting.

We drove past

a lot of burnt out forests

And flew through smoke so thick,

You couldn't hardly

even see anything.

Is You've lived here

your whole life, right?

Is that Has this

always been like that?

This is probably

the first time.

Really?

That it's gone

to the scale of...

The wildfires last summer.

Uh-huh, yeah.

And, was also the first time

That we had to

evacuate this community

Since its establishment

here in 1904.

This isn't

a climate change video.

This isn't

a climate change video.

Oh yeah. Soot on the foot.

This is what kept us

from going last year.

While Yellowknife was

mercifully spared by the wildfires,

Behchok and many living around it

weren't so lucky.

Dozens of Tch citizens

Lost their homes and

businesses to the flames

And are still recovering

a year later.

This landscape

that's seen so much change

Over its billions of years

Is now experiencing

changing weather patterns

That's lowered rainfall

and increased heat,

Leading to dangerously dry forests

In a landscape of tinder

just waiting to go off.

Rocks that were once

buried under miles of ice

Now set ablaze,

Filling the sky with

a thick layer of smoke

That turn the sunlight

a deep hue of orange-red.

It was especially bad

on the day we flew to the outcrop.

So while the crew's back there

getting our plane ready,

Our tiny float plane,

Just thought I would

stand here for a second

And take it all in.

I've been planning this

for three years...

And the day's finally here.

I'm not as nervous

as I thought I would be.

Although nervous isn't

really even the right word.

Just excited to get out there.

I've talked to Jesse and Mike

on Zoom many times,

But I've never met them in person.

So it's gonna be kind of like

meeting old friends

For the first time.

In areas like this,

Where the communities are

few and very far between,

The only way to get around

is by float plane.

So we had to weigh ourselves

and all of our gear

So that we have

the right amount of fuel

To get there, because...

- These are tiny planes.

- We're taking on a bunch of gear.

- Hey!

- We're traveling pretty light.

Our pilot's name is Sofie,

who is a total badass.

She actually rode into work

on a bike.

And this plane was old school.

According to Sofie,

the plane was made in the 1950s,

And the only thing electronic on it

is the radio and the GPS system.

This is 100% manual flying.

For the next two hours.

I'll be honest.

I was kinda nervous

about this flight.

I don't normally get nervous flying

Because it's kind of

a really big deal

When a plane goes down,

And you really don't hear

about them that often,

Considering the thousands of flights

that take place every day.

So you know

how often they happen.

But little private planes like this?

This wouldn't even make the news.

I have no idea

how many of these go down.

And the only time

they do make the news

Is when some celebrity is on board.

Like, say, a beloved YouTuber.

Also we're taking off

and landing in water,

And I've never done that before.

It kind of feels like

it would be rough

With it bouncing off the tops

of the waves in the water.

But thankfully it was

in fact a smooth ride

And more like driving

through the sky.

We even rode

with the windows cracked.

- Like butter.

- Woo!

Gave out a Texas woo.

I was as giddy as a schoolboy

And mesmerized by

the alien landscape,

A landscape that was dotted

with even more wildfires.

In fact, at one point,

we entered a smoke cloud

And briefly lost all visibility.

This is a literal

land of fire and ice.

After a couple of hours of flying

And passing by thousands

of lakes and streams,

The time had arrived.

As the plane began to circle

to find the right angle to land,

I saw it. Snoopy Island.

After spending countless hours

Searching maps

for this distinctive island,

There it was, right below me.

It was surreal.

Somewhere down there was

the oldest rock on planet Earth.

And I was ready to meet it.

The landing was smooth

as butter, by the way.

As we pulled out to the beach

yes, Snoopy Island has a beach

Jesse and Mike appeared

and waded out to the plane

And literally helped pull

the plane toward the sand.

They drove a stake

in the ground to secure it,

And then Sofie tied it off

like a horse at a saloon.

And the jet bridge

was one of the worst

I've ever experienced at an airport.

I generally don't

wanna get my feet wet

When I'm disembarking.

Zero stars.

- Nice to meet you, man.

- Good to see you.

- Thanks for having us out.

- Oh, of course.

- Oh, of course.

- Welcome.

You brought the smoke with you.

Base camp was pretty basic.

Well stocked kitchen tent,

work tent, bags of rock collections.

You might be thinking

it looks like a lot of stuff

For just a couple of guys.

Well, that's because

they actually have

A whole team of people

on this expedition,

But that particular day,

they were actually out in the field,

So Mike and Jesse stayed back

to hang out with us.

So we'll be

We'll go to this outcrop here,

That you can see the cliff,

Then basically past the cliff

to the land over there

Is where the oldest part is for sure

That I mapped in my PhD.

Wow, I'm gonna learn

so much today.

That's the plan.

- Taking y'all with me!

- We all will.

- Be prepared to nerd out.

- You know, well...

That's the quote of

the day right there.

Yeah, you described

yourself on Zoom as...

You're the keeper of

the nation's rock collection.

Mhm, yeah, yeah.

One of three of 'em, yeah.

We have three people

who are all PhD scientists

Whose job it is to ensure that

this wealth of information

That's retained in rocks

That people have

worked on for decades,

Remains something

that people can use.

Which is part of the reason

we're out here...

Is to collect some rocks to bring

them back to the collections.

I know the bugs are gonna get you.

- I know, well...

- Yeah.

Just gonna have to deal

with it, I guess, I dunno.

Yep.

Well, as the keeper of

the nation's rock collection

That sounds like something that

Nicholas Cage would be trying

to break into at some point.

Yeah, we're right across

from the National Archives too.

So I'm always like,

"Hmm, I don't know.

If they don't want the Constitution,

they could come for the rocks."

Yeah, well...

One of the best things

I've heard people talk about rocks

In terms of being a geologist,

which is that rocks are like books,

And that you don't

really look at a book

And say, "Wow, what a great book."

It's the story inside the book

that you care about.

It's the same thing with rocks.

Well, I wanted to give

you a chance to talk about

Specifically what you guys

are researching right now.

Is there a specific goal

for this trip?

Absolutely, yeah.

So, you know, these rocks

That we're

about to be standing on

Are the oldest known

rocks on the planet.

A lot of the work

that Jesse and other people

Have been doing

points back in time

To the potential for rocks

that are might be even older.

So we think, based on

the geochemical evidence

That Jesse and others

have produced,

That there should be rocks

That are older than

4 billion years out here.

And so we're hoping,

If we have an outstanding,

amazing success,

We will have discovered

rocks that are

Or at least crystals that are older

than 4 billion years out here.

And we only have

one data point

From beyond 4 billion years.

So our hope is that we're going to

be able to add another data point

And try to compare and contrast

how the rocks here

Might have told a different story

about the early Earth

Than the rocks that

are currently residing

On the other side of the planet.

That's one of our main goals,

Is to try to investigate

and hopefully discover something

That's older than

4 billion years old.

But that's a pipe dream.

Chances of success are low,

But the opportunity for

human knowledge advancement

Is extremely high, so...

It's the way

that's the place to be.

To accomplish this,

they need to bring in somebody

Who had spent extensive

time on these rocks

And mapped them thoroughly.

Someone like this guy.

I mean, I'm just...

One of the more recent

Of a long line of people

who've worked in these rocks.

I mean, these are famous rocks

in geological circles,

Since the late '80s when they

were discovered to be old.

And various people have

mapped at various scales.

Some people would take this outcrop

and produce a map of it.

Some people would map in

over 30 square kilometers here

And produce a map of that area.

And what I did was kind of

in between those two.

It was this island

and the peninsula over there.

- We'll go, we discovered some

- The hook.

The hook one, yep, exactly.

We'll go park on those.

Those are the ones that we mapped

As this 4.02 billion year old unit

where it starts there,

It ends there,

and it goes up into the hill,

And you could map it as a unit.

So that kind of intermediate scale

was what my PhD was on.

But there's decades of people

who've mapped

This complex,

this suite of rocks

In this 50 square kilometer

area here.

So this 50 square kilometer area

Is like the oldest spot?

There are parts of it

that are the oldest.

This rock you're sitting on is

a 3.6 billion year old rock.

So it's not the oldest part,

unfortunately.

- Still pretty old.

- It's still very

I mean, there's maybe...

What, I'm gonna

make up a number here,

Ten places on Earth

that have rocks that old.

So it is one of

the oldest rocks on Earth.

- It's not the oldest though.

- Yeah.

So, so in this complex,

If you look, all these hills

you can see around us,

They'll be rocks

ranging from 4 billion years

To 2.9 billion years,

are the age of the rocks.

And then they were

all metamorphosed

1.9 billion years.

And that's the deformation,

The sort of structural pattern

we can see to these rocks.

That was a later feature

that squished them together.

Is there a difference

between like continental crust

And ocean crust?

Mm, oh, great question.

Or is it just

that there's a dip,

And that's where the water goes?

The rocks that we're on

are continental crust.

They make up the continents.

They're lighter in terms of density,

And they're functionally

more buoyant

Than the oceanic floors,

- Which are a denser rock.

- Oh, okay.

So...

Most ocean plateaus are made

up of rocks that are denser,

And they're actually

the crust there is much thinner.

- Okay.

- It's a couple of kilometers

Versus maybe 40, 50, 60

kilometers below us here.

So these

continental crust rocks,

At least now,

are rising above the oceans,

And they chemically weather,

And they form the composition

of our atmosphere.

They stabilize the atmosphere.

They stabilize our ocean chemistry.

They're a really

unique feature to Earth

That no other planetary body has.

As we were flying in,

and I was looking at it,

And I was like thinking about

All the glacial periods

that have happened up here,

And I'm sitting here thinking about

how old these rocks are,

And it occurred to me that...

That's like the

a blink of an eye.

And the age of these rocks,

that's just nothing!

So the significant thing

about the glaciers

Was it could it have been just

that kind of cleared the rocks off

And brought this up to

where it's exposed now?

Yeah, I think it's...

It's probably the former, certainly.

Probably not the latter.

So the rocks were probably

at or near sea level,

Or at, you know,

in their current elevation

Relative to the deeper rocks

For a long time, for hundreds

of millions of years.

And the glaciers, as you said,

are just the most recent thing

- In the last...

- Yeah.

Few, tens of

thousands of years.

But they cleaned them off,

scraped the stuff off,

Exposed them, and

But these rocks,

people have gone around

And tried to understand

how did they

When did they rise

to the surface or near surface?

And that was an old

phenomenon as well.

So hundreds of millions

of years at least

Since these things

were deep down.

So they've been

kinda just riding high

Right near the surface for...

Several hundred million years

to billions of years.

Educate me on cratons.

Cratons.

First of all,

am I saying it right?

- Yes, you are.

- Okay, good.

If you're English

or British school,

- You'd say 'KRAHT-ons', but

- KRAHT-ons.

Yeah, exactly, yeah.

If you wanna sound smart.

But 'CRAYT-ons', that's what I say.

'CRAYT-ons', so that's good.

Cratons are the

You can think of them as

the interior of continents.

They're the really stable part.

If you have heard the word

'Canadian Shield'.

- Yeah.

- That's a craton.

There's a bit of discussion about

what the term 'craton' means,

Because if you look at

the Canadian Shield,

It's a vast expanse

of stable continent

That hasn't seen much

deformation or metamorphism

Or much activity

for a very long time.

Not to cratons.

They are old, they're stable.

They have a super thick

mantle root beneath them

That protects them

from later deformation.

So we're all familiar

with plate tectonics, right?

That the Earth's crust is

made up of different plates

That move and slide around

and crash into each other,

Sometimes splitting apart

continents, creating oceans,

Sometimes subducting

underneath into magma

And melting like Anakin Skywalker,

creating mountains and volcanoes.

Well, cratons are formed

in the earliest days of Earth.

This was actually known

as the Hadean Era

After Hades, the great god of hell.

Everything is boiling hot magma.

But in some places,

Some less dense magma

floated to the top

And collected and then

cooled in the air,

And this became the first rock.

Eventually, the denser rock

around it would cool

And fill out the rest

of the continents

And the tectonic plates.

But these earliest rocks

were the earliest rocks,

Because they were so buoyant.

So when the plates started

smashing into each other,

It was the denser rock

that would slide underneath

And melt into the mantle.

And these older,

more buoyant rocks, these cratons,

They didn't get sucked under.

They just kind of floated on top

of all this for 4 billion years.

It didn't survive

unscathed, though.

It definitely evolved over time.

It gets eroded, folded, pressed,

smashed up quite a bit,

But it never gets subducted.

There are several ancient

cratons around the world,

But the biggest and oldest

is the Canadian Shield,

Which also just happened to spend

The last several million years

in the glacial zone.

And as the Earth went through

several glacial periods,

These mile-high walls of ice

scraped away the top soil,

Leaving this endless, expansive rock

exposed for the world to see.

And because of this,

Wide swaths of Canada are

almost entirely uninhabited

Because there's just no land

to develop agriculture on.

But also because of this,

it exposed these rocks

And the stories held within them.

I think for me,

Geology... is such

a massively diverse field

That it's just about

the world around you,

The landscape around you,

and you look around.

And it's the same thing, yeah.

People have

You could very easily walk

across these rocks

And think, "Oh, those are

quite pretty rocks."

But they're some of

the oldest rocks in the world.

It has new meaning.

You have to sit down

and think about,

What does 4 billion years

actually mean?

That's really hard to comprehend.

- Yeah.

- And I can't

I'm not doing it right now,

But when I do

comprehend it a little,

You get hints of it,

and it's scary.

I mean, it's like, wow,

this is unbelievable.

It's a sort of a spiritual

or whatever, you know,

It's some

it has meaning that's

It's very complicated and

a sort of a spiritual experience

To sort of think about

time and that scale.

'Cause we try and keep

things simple as geologists.

So we always talk about it

In like the first or

second decimal place.

We say,

"Oh, it's 4.0 billion years."

And that just cheapens it

a bit, you know?

We should say it's like...

4 billion is a massive number

compared to...

That .1 is 100 million years.

- Exactly, it's insane.

- Unfathomable.

So the difference between,

you know, this rock,

Which is 3.8,

and that one, which is 3.6,

That's 200 million years old.

Or 200 million years

That's 200 million years

of difference.

That's an enormous amount of time.

- And we're sitting on

- Wait, wait, wait, wait.

No, wait, so I have to process this.

So, so this rock right here...

Is, what, 300 million years

younger than this?

This is younger.

This will be three Well, okay.

This isn't a great outcrop

'cause I haven't dated

this particular one.

- But for the sake

- But for the sake of argument.

For the sake of argument,

this is 3.8.

Similar rocks to this over there

are 3.8 billion years old, 3.75.

This is 3.6.

So that's 150 million years

Of age difference

between those two rocks,

And they're just sitting happily

Next together, next to

each other right now.

That's like...

...before the dinosaurs.

Well before the dinosaurs.

Well before the dinosaurs.

- That entire space?

- Yeah.

- Right there.

- Exactly.

It's deeply humbling to sit

on a 4 billion year old rock

And think, you know,

My life is a minuscule

amount of time

Compared to what

this rock has experienced.

These are hallowed ground

to geologists.

Like everybody,

if in an undergrad degree,

You will probably hear the words

"the Acasta Gneiss Complex"

At some point

in that degree process.

And so this is a place,

I've been here, set up camp

When we're mapping

during my PhD

Where a random helicopter came

and dropped off a couple geologists

Just because they wanted

to look at it for the day,

And they had some helicopter time,

and they were swinging by.

So it's a place like that,

That people will land

to check it out

Because it is kind of

hallowed ground

In a for geologists.

You think more deeply about

things other than rocks

When you're sitting on these rocks.

At least I do,

in my own experience.

The actual outcrop

is a short boat ride

Across the lake from Snoopy Island,

And in the interest

of protecting it,

We've chosen not to reveal

its exact location here.

We're headed

for those outcrops.

We can see just a

Just on the other side of the point,

just past the point there.

This lake, by the way,

is so far from human habitation

That they're able

to drink directly from it.

I saw them refilling

their water bottles

On our trip back.

Apparently the deeper water

tastes better.

I tried it myself.

It was delicious.

Oh, and when we arrived,

they made a big point to tell us

To tuck our pants into our socks

to protect from bugs.

But for some reason,

I'm the only one that did it.

Hence the classy look

I'm sporting here.

No worries guys, it's not like

I'll be on camera or anything.

- I did it!

- Pull it tight to that.

- What are we close to?

- Close to the old stuff.

- The oldest rocks?

- 4.02 billion year old stuff.

We tied off the boat

and took a short trek

Along the shore to the oldest rocks.

But first, a quick stop at

another impressive formation.

So this is a

3.8 billion year old rock

That has a bunch of veins

That are cross-cutting it,

so we know they're younger,

Because you can't

cross-cut something

Unless the something

was there before.

And so the veins are younger,

Probably 3.6 billion years old.

And it's bounded.

Sort of down here,

You can start to see

a very deformed rock...

That has this layering

to it here.

And this is a, what we call

a banded gneiss package.

So G-N-E-I-S-S, gneiss.

Lots of geology puns

that go along with that.

Nice!

But this is a gneiss,

and this gneiss package

Will continue

down the hill as we see,

And there's several different

ages of units of rocks

That are smooshed together

in this nice package.

So we're kinda

going back in time?

We're going

back and forth in time.

Because these again,

it's rock layers like this.

It's a 4 billion year old rock,

a 3.7 billion year old rock,

A 3.9 billion year old rock,

4.0 billion year old,

3.9, 3.7 billion year old rock, 3.6.

And then they're all

squished like that

And sometimes folded

over on each other.

So there's a lot of

layering in these

'cause they're just

squished into oblivion.

But we see stuff like this,

And this is kind of a random

alignment of mineral grains,

Which is what you get

in a primary rock

That has not been

deformed very much.

This stri These stripes

are very rare to get

In igneous rocks

as a primary feature.

So this is probably a rock

that's been squished.

So do you see this kind of

like bending in the rock

- And stuff kind of everywhere?

- Yeah. Everywhere.

But this just happens

to be super old rock

That that's been done to

many, many, many

Exactly, yep.

So it's super old rock.

This is probably either a 3.6

Or a 3.4 billion year old

injection that...

That sort of injected itself

into this other rock

And crosscuts it.

So we know

this is older than this

Because of the

crosscutting nature of it.

And then the whole thing's

been deformed

1.9 billion years ago,

2.5 billion years ago,

multiple times.

This little body has been

isolated from deformation

More than the rocks

we'll see right down there.

This is like slightly

better preserved

Than the ones right down there.

These are some of

the more complicated rocks

You're ever going to see.

So, you kind of threw yourself

in the deep end here,

- Coming to these rocks.

- Yeah.

We were We've been sitting

for days on these rocks

Just asking the same questions.

You are trying to grapple with

the scale and the magnitude

- Of the history in these rocks.

- Yeah.

It's functionally impossible.

- It's very hard.

- To do in the field.

For, you know,

trained geologists

With a lot of shared field expertise,

That we're sitting on rocks

that we're debating,

What does that structure tell us?

You know what's

also amazing about this?

It looks like a boot.

Okay.

It looks like a boot.

It's like

Oh, I see, the outline.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Alright, I got you.

- That's good Texan stuff right there.

- Yeah.

Finding cowboy boots

everywhere.

I can't get away.

You can take the boy outta Texas,

But you can't take

the Texas outta

Oh yeah, it's

gotta find one there.

We have this... law,

Law of science that you learn

in Geology 101 classes...

Where basically the idea is that

the present is the key to the past.

So you can look at

things happening today

And trace back... what was

happening in the past.

And that law

unambiguously breaks down

- You get this far back.

- Yeah.

I mean, what we have to

try to do with these rocks,

And what Jesse's done

a really good job of

Is trying to piece together...

What Earth could have looked like

When we didn't have

the ability to go walk around

And hike around in the Cascades

and grab a volcanic rock,

And go to Yosemite,

and go to Iceland, go to Hawaii.

We do not know what

the early Earth looked like,

And the only way

We can even come close

to getting there

Is by looking at these rocks.

And now that we had

a better understanding

Of what we were looking at,

it was time for the main event.

But this rock unit,

now you are standing on...

Is the...

4.02 billion year old rock unit.

And it goes from up

where your feet are

For about 10 meters

down in this direction,

And it continues up into

the hill for quite a while.

And you can see, come look at it,

and see this same kind of layering.

There's a different chemistry and

a different chemical composition

From that rock in a different age,

And it's inter-layered with

other rocks of younger eras.

But this is the old one right here.

So kinda the way

you just explained the rocks

On the other side over there...

What can we read?

What's the story here that

we can read in these rocks?

Ah, it is

The story is smeared out

When you're looking at it

in an outcrop.

The story is really

in the geochemistry

And what we can tell

in the lab about it.

So we take these rocks

back to the lab,

We look at their zircon cargo,

These minerals that are

really good at geochronology.

They also record

a bunch of geochemistry.

And we can tell something

about when the rock

How the rock was created,

how the magma was created,

Where it crystallized in the crust.

And then we can also look at

the composition of the rock.

So the chemical recipe for the rock.

And that tells us some key things

about how it was created as well.

What environment it formed in,

what led to the melting

That produced a magma

that created this rock,

Which made these rocks

exciting for us

Because the chemical

composition of these rocks

Matches very closely to

a rock type called Icelandite.

And as you would guess...

- Icelandite occurs in Iceland.

- Where's that from

Yeah, exactly.

And so, you know,

Iceland's a proto-continent.

These are the oldest rocks

we know of, on this area,

And maybe our planet.

And they're

they look like Icelandites.

And, so maybe this

is a proto-continent.

Maybe this is how the continent

kinda got kickstarted growing.

Proto-continent.

Have to sit with that one

for a minute.

- That's wild.

- Yeah.

I don't know what else to say.

I'm kinda

You gotta sit and think,

sit and think in silence is okay

- On the world's oldest rocks.

- Well...

One of the things I was

sitting here looking at,

It looks like it kinda

looks like an old man.

Like it's got these deep wrinkles.

It's got this...

I mean, some of this I'm sure

is lichen that's on top here,

But it's like, it's so

it's got these lines across it.

It looks scarred.

It looks weathered.

It looks old.

Deep wrinkle lines. I like that.

That's a good description.

But it...

I don't know.

It almost makes me kind of

I'm being I'm really

being like, woo-woo now,

But it's like, it makes me

think of like an old grandpa.

Mhm.

An old lovable grandpa

That's been through some sh*t.

And...

And we're all just

kinda living on it.

Yeah, no, you're not off.

That's how when

the original discovery was made,

People were walking across

these rocks and said,

"Oh wait, these have had

a tortured history.

"Much more tortured

than rocks over there,

"and rocks over there.

So this is a different beast.

Let's date it."

And then they dated it

and found

3.964 billion year old

rocks around.

So that little bit of

your intuition is exactly right.

This looks old and tortured.

How crazy is it that like

literally just a visual thing

Of looking at it is like,

"Hey, there's something to this."

- And then it turns out there was.

- Yep.

Geology is great

because, you know,

We speak about

planetary science all the time.

Every time you look at in a rock,

you're seeing a different planet,

A planet that used to exist

and no longer does

Because Earth has

this long timescale

Of a rock record.

And when we look at exoplanets

and other solar systems,

We're getting a snapshot

into that planet's life.

And you know, even arguably on

our limited sampling of Mars

And no samples of Venus,

we're getting kind of snapshots

Of the planetary lifetime.

In Earth,

as we go back in time,

We are doing planetary science

because we're looking at

A planet that no longer exists.

Listening to Mike and Jesse,

It became clear to me that

these are not just old rocks.

These are memories

of a previous planet.

Memories that have

become scrambled and twisted

As they become unintelligible

and nonsensical.

A 4 billion year old puzzle

For people like Mike

and Jesse to decipher.

And I could listen to them

talk about this all day,

But with our time ticking away

And Sofie waiting for us

back at the plane,

There was still one thing

left to capture.

After three years of

misdirections and close calls,

The time had finally come

To stand on the oldest

rocks on planet Earth.

I've been thinking about this trip

for a really, really long time.

And I several

on several occasions,

I sat down and...

Tried to write out my thoughts

on the whole thing,

And I stopped myself.

I wanted to actually get here

And feel it and see,

be like what I felt.

And now I'm here...

...and it's complicated.

I don't know how I feel.

I don't know that like

you know, I try to stay away

From woo-woo type stuff, but...

I was wondering if I would

feel some kind of energy?

Some kind of Earth energy

coming off of this?

I don't know,

I don't know that I feel that,

But I do feel a weight.

I feel...

...a presence.

Again, I'm not trying

to make it woo-woo.

I'm not trying to make

it out like I'm pick

It's not this isn't

Stonehenge, you know.

It's not mystical or anything.

It's just...

To contemplate,

to sit in this spot...

On these rocks that have existed...

For almost a third of the universe?

It's very humbling.

That's not even

the right word for it.

Humbling isn't the right word.

It's not just that this has

existed for 4 billion years,

Which is itself an

incomprehensibly large number...

Because as many people

would be quick to point out,

Everything on the Earth has

been here for 4.5 billion years.

But, everything gets transformed.

Everything gets reshaped.

Everything gets turned

into something else.

Metamorphosed, if you will.

But this hasn't.

This has been here

this whole time.

Unchanging.

Actually, it's changed a lot,

but fundamentally unchanging.

You know, one of

the themes of this video

Is supposed to be like

permanence and renewal.

And permanence,

or this kind of permanence,

It's not something

that we can even...

Experience, certainly

can't experience.

Can't even really comprehend, but...

Renewal is something

that we can experience.

So maybe let's see

what that's all about.

Yeah.

Onto the next thing.

From the smoky skies and

ancient granite of northern Canada

To the sun, palm trees,

and black sand,

We traveled to the newest

place on planet Earth:

The Big Island of Hawaii.

The Big Island of Hawaii is

the youngest of the Hawaiian Islands

At around 500,000 years old.

Which, to visualize this,

when you put that on a chart

Next to the Acasta Gneiss...

Hawaii's there.

It's just a pixel or two, but yeah.

It's younger.

Also, just a quick note

On the actual pronunciation

of the word.

I always just said

"Hawaii" growing up.

That's how most of us

learn it in the US,

But there is

an apostrophe in there,

Which in the Hawaiian language

indicates a glottal stop.

So it's actually

pronounced "Ha-wai-i".

Now, there are some that

go a bit further with that

And say "Ha-va-i" with a V sound,

but that's kind of a sub-dialect.

All the islands have

their own subcultures

With their own dialects,

But the most universally

accepted pronunciation,

According to the experts

I talked to anyway, is "Ha-wai-i".

So, I'm gonna be using

that pronunciation in this video.

There are seven main islands

in the Hawaiian island chain,

And they get younger

the further down you go,

Ranging in age from

5.2 million years old

To half a million years

old on the Big Island,

Whose name is actually Hawai'i,

But because that's also

the name of the state,

Most people just call it

"the Big Island".

Because it's the big one.

And the Big Island

is especially unique

Because out of the 13 climate zones

that exist on planet Earth,

Eight of them can be found

on the Big Island of Hawaii.

It is literally the most

ecologically diverse

Place in the world.

This is due to the unique

geology of the island,

Which is dominated by two peaks

Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa

Which rise up to 4,207 and

4,169 meters respectively.

This causes the trade winds

carrying warm, moist air

Up from the northeast

to rise up as it hits the mountains.

This cools, condenses,

and falls as rain,

Making the east side wet and humid

while the west side is drier,

Even desert conditions

in some places.

And there are two main

population centers on the island,

With Hilo on the east coast

and Kailua-Kona on the west coast.

Hilo is larger and

serves as the county seat

On the island of Hawai'i,

While Kailua-Kona is more

of a tourist destination

That's famous for their coffee.

But as much as I love coffee,

we traveled to Hilo

Because of its proximity to

Hawaii Volcanoes National Park.

Also, that's where the offices

Of the US Geological Survey

are located.

When I said that

Hilo is generally

More humid and wet,

I wasn't kidding.

In fact, Hilo is considered

The wettest city

in the United States.

And just some foreshadowing,

That was totally

my experience there.

I was quite moist the whole time.

Which, while that might not be

my favorite feeling in the world,

It's made Hilo the most

lush and green place

I've ever seen in my life.

The plant life here is spectacular

with sky-high palm trees

Alongside wide and

sprawling banyan trees

That are such a fixture

of the island

That many of them had names.

Outside our hotel,

at any given time,

There were people swimming

and paddle boarding

And fishing in the lagoon,

and families enjoying epic cookouts

Underneath the banyan trees.

It's an island lifestyle

That operates on vibes

and community spirit,

Where a sunny day can become

a rainstorm and back again

In the span of 15 minutes.

The rain is just part of life here.

The locals call it liquid sunshine.

Okay, we're in Hawaii,

and here's where things stand.

Where we stand right now

is we're on the island.

We're in Hilo on the Big Island.

We have one interview

set up with a geologist.

We have a second one

on the way

And a third that we

are trying to set up.

The thing that I'm finding

is that Canada, I thought,

Would be a million times

harder than here

Because it's very remote.

There's no infrastructure

out there and all that.

This is Hawaii.

It's actually a state.

You don't even have to do

a currency exchange.

What I'm finding though is that...

Especially when getting

interviews set up,

This is where people live and work.

And right now they have

a lot of work to do

Because the volcano is erupting.

So our schedules had to

be insanely flexible.

And what we've told everybody is,

"Look, give us three hours

of head time, lead time,

And we will come to you.

We'll make it happen."

So in the meantime, today...

So this is the first day.

This is Friday.

We're gonna be going around Hilo,

seeing a little bit of the town.

We do have an interview

this afternoon

That I'm really excited about.

But the first things first,

I've gotta get some

Sudafed or something

Because my ears have not...

Have not cleared

since I got off the plane.

I can barely hear

anything outta this ear.

It's not a good time.

But we're here.

I'm ready to make the most of it.

And let's just see what happens.

Little sea arch back there.

It's not gonna be around forever.

It might fall in our lifetimes.

The island of Hawai'i is

of course a volcanic island,

One of the most volcanic

hotspots in the world,

Regularly spewing out molten lava

from its three active volcanoes,

Klauea, Mauna Loa,

and Huallai,

The last of which

hasn't erupted since 1801,

But it's still considered active.

Mauna Loa is considered

the tallest volcano on Earth

When measured from the sea floor,

And it's the second tallest

mountain in the world,

Again, if measured

from the sea floor.

It's just bested by its

sister mountain Mauna Kea,

A mere 38 meters taller.

And then there's Klauea,

One of the most active

volcanoes on Earth.

It's been erupting almost

nonstop since 1983,

Releasing lava from

its central caldera

As well as various rift zones

along the southeast of the island.

All of which is to say

that if we wanna stand

On the newest rocks in the world,

We've got plenty of options

to choose from.

So we set out to find the best spot.

Alright. Here's

what we're looking at.

So this is the Hawaii

Volcanoes National Park.

According to the geologists

and the researchers I talked to,

There's three... pretty good

options here for the newest rock.

The first one is actually over here.

Okay.

This is actually Mauna Loa.

This isn't Klauea.

So Mauna Loa is the second

highest mountain on the island,

But it's the highest active

volcano in the world.

- So it's up in elevation quite a bit.

- Right.

But there's this

access road right here.

It's called

Mauna Loa Observatory Road.

And in 2022, so two years ago,

A lava flow completely

blocked off this road.

So if you're going down that road,

you can't miss it.

You literally can't go any further.

It's blocked off by lava.

But it's a publicly accessible road.

There's a highway right over here.

Anybody can go to it.

100%, this is doable.

- We can do this.

- Sure.

And that's two-year-old rock.

- Okay.

- Not too bad.

But three months ago...

There was an eruption right here.

This little crack,

this little fissure right here.

This is just south

of the big crater,

But it's a pretty remote area.

There's a trail that goes

right through here,

But it's a six-mile hike,

and it's an unmarked trail.

It's not paved.

It's not even a smooth trail.

It's over sharp, jagged rocks.

And then from there,

we'd have to go off-trail

For at least a mile and a half or so

Over even newer sharper rocks.

- So like 12 miles round trip?

- Yes.

- Over sharp rocks.

- Over sharp rocks.

And there's no

cell phone reception there.

Okay.

And like we're going up

a mountain too, on sharp rocks.

Yeah.

With no cell phone reception.

- Carrying gear.

- With gear.

Yeah.

So, not the best option.

And we're going off-trail.

- Yeah.

- So...

...technically speaking,

ill*gal.

Yeah, so...

So we could get arrested?

- We might get arrested.

- We could get arrested.

Small problem.

So we won't get

arrested going there.

- Okay.

- For the two-year-old rock.

This one, there's all kinds

of dangers and issues there.

- Could get arrested or die.

- Yeah.

Okay.

There is another option though.

Literally two days

before we arrived in Hawaii,

A fissure opened up

in what they call

The middle East Rift Zone,

near a crater called Npau Crater.

It was the first lava flow

from Klauea in months,

So we got pretty lucky.

It started out as

a fairly small eruption

Releasing just enough lava

to set the vegetation on fire.

But over the next few days,

It turned into a curtain of lava

several meters high

That pooled and flowed

over the crater walls

Briefly creating a lava fall,

which is like a waterfall from hell.

The fissure expanded into the crater

And would eventually

cover two-thirds of it

With a new layer of lava rock.

The question was...

...could I stand on

this brand new rock?

To get some answers,

I visited the Geology Department

At the University of Hawai'i at Hilo

Where samples of this eruption

were being studied.

And we got to sit in

on a demonstration.

So I'm kinda gonna take you

through the whole process

Of like what our eruption response,

As well as just normal

processing looks like

When we have samples.

When we're looking at these samples,

we wanna find both glass

But also the crystals

to do analyses on.

And so the mineral chemistry

and the mineral crystals

Tell us a lot about what's going on

Underneath the magma chamber

and underneath the surface.

And so thinking about

that chemical zoning,

Thinking about their chemistry,

We really need to actually

find the crystals.

And to do that,

we have to break down the rock

And sift through and find them.

- Am I doing it right?

- Yeah.

UH Hilo is unique

Because their undergraduates

actually get to participate

In volcano research

right there side by side

With USGS scientists at the

Hawaii Volcano Observatory.

Yep. Awesome.

So if people want

to come take a look,

Use these, lightly play around,

try to find any crystals

That you can, go for it.

So the eruption

that's happening right now,

Is that considered

Mauna Loa or Klauea?

No, that's a

Klauea eruption, yes.

So, the eruption

that happened on Sunday,

It started Sunday night

on September 15th,

Started in the middle

East Rift Zone of Klauea.

And it was kind of between

Makaopuhi Crater and Npau Crater.

And what happened is

a fissure opened up

In just opened, separated,

Magma flowing out

and having fountains.

It's funny 'cause we've been

kinda keeping track of all this

- Before we come out here.

- Yeah.

And they were like,

"Oh, something's erupting."

- Like, oh, yay, you know.

- Yay!

But then like,

it was kinda like,

"Oh, it's kinda

oozing out, whatever."

And then I saw the video

where just, "Ksssh!"

Yes!

Like the end of, you know,

Revenge of the Sith.

And then it was like, "Oh my god."

End of the world, yeah.

How common is that?

Is that like a big deal to get that?

Or is that just like a Tuesday?

- Yeah, just a Tuesday.

- Yeah.

Yeah, but I mean,

I think it's very cool.

It had a lava waterfall.

- I saw that, yeah.

- Yeah.

I've never seen that before.

- Oh, wow.

- It was pretty insane, yes.

So like you're...

Oh no, you're sitting at your desk,

And they're like, "Woo-woo-woo.

Time to fly out there."

- Yeah, yeah.

- Is that how that works?

That's how I see it in my head.

Honestly, kind of, yeah.

It's like the marionettes, like,

"Okay, let's go on our own."

And they're like, "Go to work."

Yeah, it kind of is like that.

There's a lot more

strategy behind it.

Really?

We have like

eruption call down lists

Where we have certain people

at certain teams,

What skills they have,

and what data sets we need.

And so, you know,

higher-ups will get notified.

We have a lot of alarms,

Like both seismic

and thermal alarms.

So when an eruption happens,

everyone can kinda get notified.

So, so did you get to

actually collect the lava,

Or was it already hard,

and you're just taking the rock?

No, you actually collect it.

- You're actually collecting it.

- Yes, yes.

And wearing the suit

and everything?

- Yeah, yeah, so you wear

- I'm so jealous.

But how do they get

Chemical analysis of the rock

in one day?

We talked to the department chair,

Steve Lundblad, to find out.

Hey, is there science

happening in here?

- Perhaps, come on in.

- Alright.

- Well, I'm Joe.

- Hi Joe, I'm Steve.

- Nice to see you.

- Nice to meet you.

So what are we doing here?

Well, right now

we're running some samples

On our EDXRF,

Which stands for Energy

Dispersive X-ray Fluorescence,

Which why we call it an EDXRF.

Few extra less syllables.

And yeah, and so what it does

is it excites the electrons

In whatever you put in here.

We have some basalt samples

that are in there right now.

And what it does is

Each one of the elements

gives off characteristic energy.

And so the different peaks

represent different elements.

And so at the end of the analysis,

We end up with

the chemical composition

Of the material

that we put in there.

Okay. So what would be

a really bad thing to see?

Like if you did your measurements,

And you got a big spike

in something,

It's like, "Oh, no,

that could mean..."

So in one regard,

If you're worried about

expl*sive eruptions, right?

The more silica you have,

The more viscous

the magma's gonna be,

The more gas it traps,

the more likely it might be

To have some sort of

expl*sive thing.

But I think around here,

It's also, if it's

really hot fluid magma

That comes out as a lava flow,

It's gonna cover

huge areas in a hurry.

So if all of a sudden,

The stuff that comes out

is much more fluid

And comes out

with a much higher

At a much higher rate,

then there are certain places

Where you clearly don't

want to be, right?

Because you're gonna

either get run over

Or it's gonna run over trees,

which can cause methane explosions

Or, you know, all of

these types of things.

So I think some of that

situational awareness

Of what's happening

at any given time,

In addition to the scientific merit,

Is also just valuable in trying

to figure these things out.

And the cool thing about this

is that you can get results

Like same day?

Yeah, so for instance,

yesterday,

They collected the sample

at eight in the morning.

I came in here,

Lis brought it down

In her drive into work,

we stuck it in the oven

For an hour or so,

powdered it, did this.

That process takes 20 minutes

or a half an hour.

Ran it in here.

Each sample takes

about 20 or 25 minutes.

And by two o'clock

we had information

- About what the composition was.

- That's so cool.

And this is a rock

that was born yesterday.

You can see that it's got

a lot of pores in it.

And it's really frothy,

and it's not a nice even surface.

And generally our instrument,

Or any instrument that

does this type of analysis,

- Doesn't like that.

- Okay.

So what it wants,

in our finished product

That we put in there,

is a pressed pellet.

So this is a pellet from that rock.

And so we've

ground up the sample

To a very fine powder,

Pressed it under, in this case,

five tons of pressure.

And so we have a very flat surface,

a very smooth surface,

And everything is

a uniform grain size,

And it's a good density

For kind of other reasons

that we care about.

So is that part of the process

of what we were looking at

Earlier with the crushing,

or is that a whole different thing?

That's related.

What they're gonna do

is they're crushing it

To see if they can find

mineral crystals in there.

We do crush this

a little bit by hand

Before we basically

turn it into a powder

- That is super refine.

- And that's in a machine.

Yeah, and so that's just

That's just a big stainless steel,

Essentially ball mill

type thing, right,

That's doing that,

called a shatter box

- 'cause it just shatters it into

- Oh, I saw that in there.

- I was wondering what that was.

- Yes, yeah.

It's like the shatter box!

And so, yeah, right?

I can see

how heavy it is just

Yeah, and so

basically put the

Oh my god!

Put the pieces in here,

on your toe in particular.

Put the pieces in here.

These guys move around randomly.

- Oh wow?

- Right.

And then it just obliterates it

into a super-fine powder.

It's almost like a

rotary engine or something.

- Yeah.

- Can I hold this?

Yeah, sure.

- Don't drop it either.

- No, I won't.

Well this is way lighter than

that tungsten carbide thing.

Yeah, so those are

pretty frothy pieces

That were coming out.

And you know,

you can see some pieces

Coming off of that guy.

So this the whole thing

in this video

Is that I'm going and trying

to see the newest rock.

That's one of 'em.

This is one of the newest rocks

on planet Earth.

Is there another volcano

erupting somewhere right now

- That could be beating this?

- Maybe.

Maybe?

- I think

- I think you have a point.

There's like 20 volcanic

eruptions happening

- At the same time.

- Yeah, yeah.

But some of them might be

spewing some ash or whatever.

But in terms of, you know,

rocks you can kind of hold.

Sure.

There we are.

We did it guys, let's go home!

But alas, I did not go home.

I still needed to stand on

the newest rocks in the world.

The Hawaiian Islands sit right

in the middle of the Pacific Plate,

By far the largest

tectonic plate on Earth

Spanning 103.3 million

square kilometers,

All of it oceanic crust.

And around the edges

of the Pacific Plate,

You'll find hundreds of volcanoes

Where the plates are

colliding and subducting.

This is called

the Ring of Fire.

Most of Earth's volcanoes

can be found here,

As well as most earthquakes.

Because this is how

most volcanoes are formed.

When one plate subducts

underneath a neighboring plate,

The heat and pressure

then melts that crust,

And then it rises to the surface,

creating a volcano.

But Hawaii is nowhere

near a subduction zone.

It's in the very middle

of the Pacific Plate.

So, how does the tallest

volcano on Earth exist

In a place that shouldn't

have any volcanoes?

The answer can be found

when you look underneath the water,

'cause the Hawaiian Islands

are far more than just

The eight or nine islands

that you know about.

In fact, there are hundreds of

underwater volcanoes and sea mounts

That stretch all the way

up to the Arctic Ocean.

Hawaii has been on the move

for millions and millions of years.

This is known

as hotspot volcanism,

Where the volcano is created

By a hotspot of magma

underneath the crust

That then punches through

and forms the volcano.

And while it might

look like the hotspot's

Been traveling to the southeast,

the truth is...

The hotspot

hasn't moved at all.

It's actually the Pacific Plate

that's moving to the northwest

At a rate of 50 to 100

millimeters per year.

That's about

this much per year,

And it's been moving

that much per year

For millions and millions

and millions of years.

In fact, you can see

in this bend

In the line of volcanoes

Where the Pacific Plate

changed direction

Roughly 40 million years ago.

The structures past this bend

Are known as the Emperor Chain,

by the way.

So when you look at

the Hawaiian Islands,

They get progressively older

the further you go to the northwest,

Becoming more and

more eroded over time

Until eventually they disappear

beneath the water.

This gives each island

its own identity and flavor.

Like, just compare

the black sand beaches

And sparse crusty flat

landscape of the Big Island,

With the lush, rust-colored

cliffs and canyons of Kaua'i.

This is actually kind of

One of my favorite sciency

things to tell people.

I just I find it fascinating,

you know, and honestly,

This globe helped spark

the fascination that I have with it,

Because it shows

the underwater sea mounts

And the Hawaiian Emperor Chain.

It just...

It just made it all click for me

when I was a kid.

Seriously, take away the iPad

and give your kids a globe, people.

I still had a lot of questions

about this process though.

So luckily I got to sit down

With another UH Hilo

geologist, Lis Gallant.

One of the really interesting,

and I think engaging parts

Of, you know, living here

is having the Mo'oelo,

Which are, you know,

the native Hawaiian stories.

And it's one of those things

that, you know,

Native Hawaiians knew

that, you know,

Kaua'i was older than O'ahu.

O'ahu was older than Maui.

Maui's older than the Big Island.

And so that, you know,

that's not something that,

You know, science discovered.

Like Hawaiians knew that

Just from looking around

at their landscape.

My question is,

so the Big Island is the newest one.

Were all the islands

before that big,

And then they just sort of

eroded away over time?

Or has the plate movement

kind of slowed down,

And therefore this island

has gotten bigger and bigger?

Or do we know that?

At one point,

O'ahu looked like the Big Island.

We had active volcanoes,

and we had larger landscapes.

But once you've removed

that volcano from the hotspot,

You don't have anything

constructing your islands anymore.

So it's just purely erosional.

And you probably have noticed

as you've been here,

- It rains a lot here.

- Yeah.

And so we have immense

amounts of erosion happening.

And so as soon as you take

that volcano off of the hotspot,

You're kind of fighting

a losing battle

Against, you know,

the elements.

The lifecycle of these volcanoes

Is actually pretty consistent.

And so eventually, you know,

The Big Island will look

more like East Maui,

And then it'll look

a little bit more like O'ahu,

And eventually it'll start

looking more like Midway

And some of the other atolls

Out in the deeper Pacific,

if you will.

The Big Island isn't

the newest volcanism

That we have associated

with the hotspot.

It's actually Kama'ehuakanaloa,

where L'ihi is, folks...

- Oh yeah.

- You know it?

It's still, you know,

out in the ocean,

Underneath the waves

for a little bit.

Yeah, what she's talking

about here is a new volcano

Forming off the coast

of the Big Island,

Roughly 975 meters

below the ocean surface.

Originally named L'ihi,

its name was changed in 2021

To Kama'ehuakanaloa,

Which means

the "glowing child of Kanaloa".

Kanaloa is the Hawaiian

god of the sea.

So yeah, eventually,

that island will break the surface,

And it'll be the newest

place in the world.

Which, I could wait

for that to happen,

But it's supposed to take

like 100,000 years.

And you know...

It's kinda taking me too long

to get this video out already.

It's remarkable to me

That you have almost

these slices of time

That you can just look at.

I mean, just as an outsider,

I'm just like, that's why

I love telling people about it.

It's just It's fascinating to me

that you just get to see that.

So, and it's not just

here in Hawaii as well.

If you look at other

hotspot kind of areas,

It's not too dissimilar.

So, the Yellowstone hotspot.

You know, Yellowstone,

"Yellowstone"

Used to actually be

around the border

Of Idaho and Nevada in that area.

- Okay.

- But as the plate has moved,

The location of where

Yellowstone is has also moved.

And now in its wake,

We have something called

the eastern Snake River Plain,

Which is kind of bunch of that,

you know, very violent ash eruptions

- With a crust of lava on top.

- Uh-huh.

- And so

- That's like behind it?

- Yeah.

- Yeah, okay.

And so it's one of those things

Where I think it's

most present here,

It's most obvious here,

because we only have, you know,

The same kind of volcano

kind of evolving

As we go up the chain.

But it's a process that

happens all over the planet.

Okay.

And this one's like out

in the middle of nowhere.

So it's more obvious,

it feels like.

I mean, it's not nowhere to me.

It's my home. It's where I live.

You had to make me sound bad

when making

I wasn't meaning it like that.

Absolutely.

I'm here for the shame.

Now all of this

I thought I understood.

But then she hit me with

this bit of knowledge.

Hotspots are really weird

enigmatic sorts of things.

We think they start from

the core-mantle boundary,

But it's not...

There's not really

a definitive answer

About why we get hotspots.

Okay.

Right, there's

still is a lot of,

You know, science

happening around it.

So normally you have

the mantle layer,

- And the crust is on top of it.

- Mhm.

So the hotspot is that

Sorry, this is, I know,

dumb question, but like,

Is it from the mantle layer?

Is it like a bubble up

from the mantle layer

That like hangs out there,

and then kind of goes up?

So, yeah, it's actually

It's not bubbling up

from the mantle

Because you're thinking

of it, you know,

The mantle on the top.

It's actually coming

from the bottom.

So if you were to drill into

like the center of the Earth,

You know, Jules Verne style,

no dinosaurs, but...

- So you go through the crust first.

- Yeah.

And then you'd go

into the mantle.

The mantle is quite thick.

You'd go down into the mantle

even further,

And then you'd hit

the core and mantle boundary.

The core has two layers.

The inner core is solid.

The outer core is liquid.

Yeah.

And so folks think that

these hotspots originate

From that liquid

outer core-mantle boundary.

And so what happens

So it punches up through

the rest of the mantle?

- Yeah!

- Wow.

The cartoon that we have

in our brains of, you know,

What it looks like

underneath the ground,

Like, "Oh, it's a bunch

of lava down there."

Actually most of

the mantle is solid.

With just a few days left,

The eruption at Npau Crater

was still going strong.

And so that area was

still off limits.

And not just because of the lava

As much as the gas

that comes with it.

Gas isn't the first thing

I think of

when I imagine a volcano.

I generally think

about the ash and lava

And just make an immature joke

about the gas 'cause I'm a child.

But it turns out gas is

the key to the whole thing.

Tricia Nadeau is a geologist

with the US Geological Survey,

And her focus is on volcanic gases.

And while we were there,

she took measurements

Along the edge of

Volcanoes National Park,

Looking specifically for

sulfur dioxide, or SO.

I know you go and do

these driving measurements...

Daily, weekly?

I mean, how often do you do those?

If nothing's erupting,

every week or two, maybe.

But when it's erupting,

we try and get at you know,

At least one set a day

if the winds cooperate.

If the winds are not cooperating,

then we can't.

Sometimes eruptions

are in remote places

Where we can't drive.

Then we have to do it

by helicopter instead.

And then it's a matter of,

can we get helicopter time?

So when we were

following you around...

- Yeah.

- What was going on there?

So one of our sort of

workhorse measurements

Here at well, I don't

any volcano observatory really is

Getting the emission rate

of sulfur dioxide,

Just how much comes out over time.

And to do that,

what I was showing you guys is...

It's what's called a spectrometer.

So, it's not quite a camera

In that it takes, you know,

2D pictures of things,

But it's just one pixel at

a bunch of different wavelengths.

So, sulfur dioxide absorbs

ultraviolet light from the Sun.

So if we use a spectrometer

that's focused on ultraviolet light,

If we set that up on a car,

and we have a GPS

To track our position

and everything like that,

And data's coming into the computer,

and it's essentially telling me

How much UV

that spectrometer is seeing.

And so if you start in clear sky,

You see lots of UV

coming from the sky.

Oh, okay.

But as you drive

underneath a volcanic plume

With sulfur dioxide in it,

You get less and less UV.

And so it's sort of

an inverse proportion.

The more sulfur dioxide you have,

The less UV your

spectrometer is gonna see.

So you keep driving

and you just see

How much sulfur dioxide

you have overhead,

Come back out to clear sky,

And then you do

a little math with the wind speed

And get your position

from your GPS

To know exactly where you were,

and you can figure out

What the emission rate

of sulfur dioxide was.

Everybody, when

they think of volcanoes,

They think of magma, they think

of lava, they think of "bleeh",

But you're focused on

the gas part of it.

Why is that important?

If it wasn't for

gases dissolved in magma,

We wouldn't really have much

in the way of volcanoes.

- If you think about...

- Okay.

Shaking up a soda bottle,

it's the bubbles and the gases

That make everything explode

and actually come out of the bottle.

So it's the same with magma.

So it's dissolved gases

that sort of make the magma buoyant

And drive the magma

up to the surface

For to be part of an eruption.

Oh, okay.

And then once it's out,

It's a health hazard

for local populations.

So, it's important

when it's still underground

'cause it's driving the eruption,

and then once it comes out,

It can tell us roughly

how much lava's coming out.

And it's a health hazard,

So we have to keep

track of it underground

And once it gets to the surface.

I never thought about

it being less dense

Because there's gas in it.

And that's so is that

- What you're saying?

- Yeah.

That it's like

that's what pushes it up,

Is the fact that it's less dense,

so it's more buoyant?

And in not here in Hawaii

because of the tectonic setting,

But in certain tectonic settings

where we have volcanoes,

Having water dissolved

down underground

Actually helps magma

melt in the first place.

Okay.

So like where

you have an oceanic plate

Going underneath a continent,

Like the Cascades

or Alaska or Japan.

Right.

The water that's

sort of incorporated

Into that oceanic crust heads down

underneath the continent,

And then it comes off

that tectonic plate,

And it facilitates melting.

And then once things like water

and sulfur and carbon dioxide

Are dissolved in that magma,

That's when you get sort of

that soda bottle effect,

And the gases drive the eruptions.

Wow.

That's crazy. I've never actually

thought of it like that.

Buoyancy!

Why have I never

thought of that before?

I never really thought about

why lava comes up to the surface

Outside of just, you know,

pressures inside the Earth,

Which does play a part in it.

But no, it's all about

density and buoyancy.

There's a reason why the core

of the Earth is mostly iron.

It's because iron is super dense,

so it sinks.

Conversely, why does

lava rise to the surface?

Because it's less dense.

Why is it less dense?

Because it's filled with gas.

It's like if

you hold a basketball

At the bottom of a pool

and let it go.

It rises quickly,

violently to the surface

Because it's filled with air.

Also, remember that buoyancy

is why those cratons

Like the Acasta Gneiss kinda float

above the tectonic activity

For billions of years.

It's because it's less dense.

Pressure changes everything.

After talking to Tricia,

we spent some time

Exploring Volcanoes National Park

And learned about

its main attraction, Klauea.

The summit of Klauea is

the most visited spot

In one of the most

visited national parks

In the United States.

And once you've been here,

it's easy to see why.

Even when it's inactive,

as it was when we were there,

It's still a stunningly

dramatic setting.

Pictures just don't do justice

To this impossibly huge

hole in the ground

Crusted over with a texture

that I can only describe

As looking like a giant

chocolate brownie,

With dozens of vents

releasing clouds of steam

That hint of the violence

and extreme conditions

That exist right

underneath the surface.

There's just this underlying hint

of danger surrounding the crater,

From the thousand-foot drops

to the craggy lava rocks.

Even the wind is

lashing and violent,

And that's on a clear day.

On other days, a fog sets in,

Preventing you from seeing

the bottom of the crater

And just enveloping

the entire area in mystery.

So this is the famous

Klauea Crater

At the top of

the summit of Klauea.

This is pretty much what

Volcanoes National Park

Is completely centered around.

So the crater itself

is large and vast,

But there's a smaller crater

inside of that crater,

And that's where all

the action's taking place.

So there's fissures and

openings and rift zones

All around this area.

And the lava can come

up there all the time,

Happens a lot.

But that's kind of like...

That's like Klauea's blowhole.

It's just kinda always open.

Now, the lava cools

when it hits the air

And just kinda turns into rock.

So it's not like if

you look down in there,

You'll just see

a lake of molten lava,

Although that would be cool.

And sometimes it's a lot more active

than it is right now.

When it is active,

It really puts on a show,

so much so...

That they built a hotel

right over there

Called Volcano House Hotel,

Which has been rebuilt

several times.

I'll let you figure out why.

Now, in 2018, something

really remarkable happened here

When a fissure opened up

at the Pu'u '' Crater,

Which is down about

10 miles that way.

But what happened here

was that lava

In the crater over there sunk.

So that event in 2018 is what

they called a summit collapse.

It didn't just drop

all the magma down.

It also dropped a whole lot

of the edge of the crater.

So like it got a lot bigger

when that happened.

But I'll let Trish tell you more

about what happened after that.

But up at the summit,

Draining all that magma

to become lava flows meant

That that summit magma chamber

was partially emptied

And not able to sort of support

the ground surface anymore.

So we got a caldera collapse.

And it wasn't sort of

one continuous thing.

It was the equivalent of

a magnitude 5.3 earthquake

Roughly every day.

And if you

We have sort of

an animation of it.

It sort of was stepwise.

It was like pulling a plug

in a bathtub or something.

It just dropped.

At the bottom of the crater,

it was a total of 500 meters drop,

Which is an Empire State Building.

So now we had

this huge, deep crater,

And we have a water well

Not too far from the summit.

So we knew....

You know, we have groundwater

around the summit.

It had not been sort of

in the crater area

'cause there was a lava lake there

before the 2018 eruption.

So it was too hot for

liquid water in that area, but...

Then there was, all of a sudden,

there's no more lava.

Everything cooled down.

And that groundwater

started to fill in.

And just under a year

after the end of the eruption,

Someone was doing

a lidar survey

To get at the new

topography of the crater.

And they were like, "What is that

little green thing at the bottom?"

It was water.

It was a little puddle.

And so over the next

14, 15 months,

Water the groundwater just

kept infilling into the crater.

So we had this lake

that just kept rising,

And there was also kinda

weird chemistry going on.

So it went from like a greenish-blue

To greenish-yellow to brown.

But the thing about

water at a volcano

Is that if you then have magma

that wants to erupt,

If you get hot magma interacting

with groundwater or lake water,

Depending on the ratio

between the two...

Sometimes it is not expl*sive,

But sometimes it can

be really expl*sive.

Yeah, yeah.

So that, you know,

that affects a community

That lives only like

a mile or two away.

They're worried

about big explosions,

Ashfall, pyroclastic flows,

Things like you just don't

like I said,

The water lake was unprecedented

in the written record.

We know from geologic samples

That there was probably

lakes in the past.

But it was just new

for all of us living here.

To get an idea

of how that lava

Drained out of the caldera,

We made a stop at Kaumana Caves

outside of Hilo.

This is one of hundreds of

cave systems and lava tunnels

That crisscross the island

and funnel both lava and water

From place to place.

So the Big Island's

actually riddled

With caves and lava tubes

just like this one.

And what happens,

the reason they do that

Is because as the lava is

pouring out on the surface,

The outside of it

connects with the air,

It cools it down, and it hardens.

And that hardened lava rock

On the outside

kinda insulates the inside.

So it keeps zipping along until

the lava flow peters itself out,

Which just leaves

a hollow tube behind.

Now, a lot of those hollow tubes,

as we've seen walking around,

They just eventually crumble

into, you know, rock.

But sometimes,

they become caves like this,

Because other lava flows

flow on top of it later on,

And soil builds up and whatnot,

And they become

these big cave systems.

And sometimes these big cave systems

even become like freshwater aquifers

That flow water from

the upper and the mountains

Down to the rest of the valleys.

Now what's interesting

about lava tubes

Is that there's also lava tubes

on like, the Moon and Mars,

And they're actually talking about

As we go to settle and colonize

on the Moon and whatnot,

That we might actually live

in those lava tubes

Because we'd be protected

from radiation and whatnot.

So lava tubes, you know,

kind of bring life here in Hawaii,

And it'll maybe bring

life to the Moon and Mars.

So it's kind of ironic

'cause we kinda started off

In caves here on planet Earth,

and we might start off in caves

In other places in the universe too.

Kinda interesting.

Oh, well this whole thing

is like a tube.

I think I'm just gonna focus

on not hitting my head.

This particular lava tube

was formed in 1881

By an eruption from Mauna Loa

and extends for just over two miles.

I'm not like a professional

spelunker or anything,

But I think I do understand

the pull of the void

That makes you go just

a little bit further

And a little bit further

into the darkness

Just to kinda see

where it goes and what's next.

This cave system is well explored,

And there were several groups

of tourists walking around it,

But it was still pretty dangerous

with uneven ground and low ceilings

That I bonked my head

against a few times.

This is like a subway tunnel

for lava.

Just to imagine this entire thing

being filled with rushing

1,400-degree hot liquid rock.

Let's hope that

doesn't happen right now.

That would be bad.

More than anything, though,

this cave was humid.

Insanely humid.

Water was constantly

condensing on the ceiling

And falling onto my head

in big fat drops,

Hence all the wetness on my shirt.

That and the fact that

I was sweating my guts out.

As the clock ticked down

on our week in Hawaii,

And the Npau Crater eruption

continued unabated,

It became more clear

That actually standing

on that brand new rock

Was becoming less and less likely.

So we thought...

...maybe we could

at least fly over it?

Today, we're going up

in a helicopter

To take a look around the island

And maybe see the new lava flow.

Never been on a helicopter before.

You guys been

on a helicopter before?

Negative.

Never been on one.

We are going to

defy the laws of gravity

And spit in God's face.

Find great glory!

Find great glory in skies above!

We weren't able to arrange

a bespoke private flight

At such short notice,

But we did book a flight

on Safari Tours,

One of several helicopter

tour companies around Hawaii.

The flight was awesome,

the pilot was super cool,

And even though it wasn't

really on the flight path,

He humored us

and flew over the site.

But as luck would have it,

Some clouds and fog had rolled in,

so there wasn't much to see.

He unfortunately couldn't safely

get us any closer than that,

So we didn't really get

what we wanted.

But no complaints.

It was a lot of fun,

and we saw some cool stuff,

And I'd never been

in a helicopter before.

So, that was cool.

Even if we had seen it, though,

That still wouldn't have

completed our mission.

We weren't there to fly over

the newest rock in the world.

We were there to stand on it.

So if we couldn't

go to the brand new rock,

And we ruled out

the three-month-old rock,

We were left with

one other option:

The 2022 Mauna Loa eruption.

So, who wants to drive up

the world's tallest volcano?

Quick thought before

I get up on this rock.

We get out here,

and we get outta the car,

And as you can see,

The entire area is just

completely bummed out

From volcanic everything.

It's just like...

Everything is sharp corners.

Everything's jagged.

There's thousands of

little pumice stones,

And it's all absorbing the sound.

It is eerily...

...freakishly quiet.

It's so quiet.

Every once in a while,

you can hear a little ping or a tick

From a tiny piece of rock

that was like dislodged...

...somewhere.

Well, something that

struck me at both places

the oldest place, and

now the newest place

Is they are both so otherworldly.

But it's not another world.

It's our world.

It's our planet.

This is how everything starts.

Just like at the oldest place,

I don't really have the words.

But I'm trying to in my head,

I'm trying to think like,

Am I feeling rebirth?

Am I feeling renewal?

Am I feeling devastation?

That's certainly is what

the landscape looks like.

I feel like I'm under

something living.

Or over I'm standing on

something that's living and...

...growing and recreating itself.

Do you have to be here

to feel that?

We could have stayed out there

Capturing this alien landscape

all day,

But the day was ending,

and the fog had rolled in,

And the time had come for us

To drive the long, winding

single-lane road

Back down to civilization.

So, we would love to stay,

but I think...

I think it's gonna get dark.

Yeah.

- I think nature might consume us.

- Yeah.

It's like a John Carpenter film

all of a sudden.

And we got stuck

on a rock for two hours,

But that's a story for another time.

But for all intents and purposes,

we achieved our mission.

Granted, this wasn't the actual

newest rock in the world.

It wasn't even

the newest rock on this island.

But the newest part of this had

always been kind of arbitrary.

There was newer rock

in the world

By the time we got back home.

Hell, there was newer rock

By the time we got off

that mountain.

There's been new rock created

Since you started

watching this film.

But if the point was to see

What a landscape

of a new Earth looks like

Still imprinted with

the violence that created it,

I can't imagine a better

place to experience it

Than that silent devastation

of Mauna Loa, 9,000 feet up.

The science that I do

is fundamentally important

To the location I live in,

And also the science

that I do is dynamic,

Because the landscape

where we live is dynamic, right?

We have a new lava flow.

There is, you know, rock

That is being born

now as we're talking.

And so for me, it's not like

The overwhelming sense

of like spirituality,

But it's a scenario where I think

That the landscape

makes you feel small.

It's a humbling experience too,

because nobody will ever look

At this exact same landscape

and see it.

- Oh yeah.

- Because the land is

This landscape here is

changing so quickly.

So if I'm on a field shift,

nobody will ever see this landscape

Because I'm watching the lava flow

Cover this portion of,

you know, this area.

I'm the only person

that will ever see that.

And so that part's

kind of humbling too.

Like I hold that knowledge

now of what used to be there.

- It's almost more ephemeral.

- Yeah, very

Ephemeral is a good word for it.

Hawaii is ephemeral.

The life cycle of an island

in the Hawaiian Emperor Chain

Is six to ten million years.

In the time that the Acasta Gneiss

has been around,

More than 400 generations

of Hawaiian islands

Could have risen,

gone dormant, decayed,

And slipped beneath the surface.

The oldest sea mount

on the Emperor Chain

Is named Meiji, around

82 million years old.

Beyond Meiji is

the Kamchatka Trench,

Where the Pacific Plate slides

beneath the North American Plate.

Beyond this point,

there's no way to know

How many former big islands have

been recycled into the Earth.

It could literally be thousands.

But the thing is,

with the exception

Of a handful of places

like the Canadian Shield,

That's pretty much true

of the entire planet.

The majority of

the Earth's surface

Has been remade

over and over again

For 4.5 billion years.

We're looking

at a different planet

That doesn't exist anywhere else.

'Cause no other planet

has continents.

No other planet has water.

This planet has

continents and water.

But back then,

most likely did not have life,

Did not have plate tectonics

the way we know of it,

Because the mantle was really hot,

and the rocks were squishy.

Thinking about the Earth

in this early period

Is an exercise in thinking about

a planet that doesn't exist.

So, you know, this is like

hallowed ground for geologists.

Everything we think

about the Earth...

...was basically wrong

back then.

That rock has a memory

From before our own

beginning of time.

Elders are aware of, you know,

When they first heard about...

You know, that discovery

of this oldest rock.

And they say, "Oh, they're

talking about ewat."

You know, like...

So they knew

about the lake already.

Like anything else,

if something's that old,

It has a memory,

and that memory

Goes back to

before our own time,

Before even the world's time.

That, that if there's anything

That holds anything

Like a food bank

that people depend on,

Or a knowledge bank,

or a university, well...

For the plain Earth,

for what it is,

That's probably

where all the memory

Of the world comes from

before it even happened.

This is the first thing

that ever really was.

It feels a little odd.

Just like that it's so

that way you can do it.

- It feels odd that you can't

- It costs a little money.

Yeah, it costs some money.

It took three plane rides

and a boat ride,

And we had to land on the water.

But, you know,

it's just still, I don't know.

It's very special.

It's very surreal.

Yeah, it's a great privilege.

I feel like we

I've been talking

About this and

planning for it for so long,

And there were like a few

different times a day I was like,

"We should actually

We're actually here."

- Mhm.

- Yeah, surreal is another word.

Yeah.

You hear about these things.

You hear about

the age of the Earth,

The age of the universe,

the solar system,

The age of certain

rock formations and places.

And it's all numbers.

It's all kinda abstract.

It doesn't really mean anything.

But when you sit here,

and you hold it,

And you think about

that level of permanence...

...it's almost impossible to grasp.

I feel silly even trying to,

if I'm being honest.

But I'm here...

...in the most ancient spot

on planet Earth.

And I'm thankful.

Not just to be here,

but to be here, to be in general.

This stuff that came

out of the Earth.

I came outta the Earth too.

And I'm only gonna be here

for a blink of an eye...

...compared to this.

And I'm thankful for that.

That I get to exist at all.

I guess that's what I'm feeling.

If I'm gonna try to search

for what I feel right now,

I feel grateful to be here.

That I've gotten to

a place in my life

Where I've been able to

do something like this.

To the people that

helped me get here.

To the people who watch my channel

and have supported me

So that I can be here.

And I'm thankful to...

God, Gaia...

This very rock...

...that I get to be here at all.

I gotta be honest,

I sat on that rock

Trying to process how I felt

into something profound.

It was mostly dross, but I think

that can sum it up like this.

Thinking on these timescales,

Realizing what a tiny blip

your life amounts to,

It can make you feel small.

But it can also make you

feel connected.

You are a part of a process

That's been going on for an

unfathomably long period of time.

A process of a planet

recycling itself

Down to the very molecules,

And eventually arranging

all those molecules into you,

A conscious being that's

capable of understanding

The process that created it

...and all the existential dread

that comes along with it.

Understanding that

is only made possible

Because of the dedicated work

of thousands of researchers

Solving the puzzles,

expanding our knowledge,

Protecting our traditions,

and keeping us safe.

I'm deeply thankful that

I got to take this journey,

And for all the people

who helped along the way

For helping me to understand

that these landscapes

That I thought were

so otherworldly...

...they're not really

landscapes at all.

They're time-scapes.

They're a glimpse of different

planets forged by time.

This... was a journey

through time.

And I hope you enjoyed

time traveling with me.

Thanks for watching.

'Til the next journey.