Why Antarctica and South America Look Almost Identical

0:00Sear has all the best active and outdoor brands you need from athletic stuff like a full-court pick-up game Swish two-ethlet-ish stuff like a half-mile stroll get those steps in and for morning hikes up the mountain trail Good pace tonight time ghost stories from the camping chair What a twist whatever level of active seara loves it all head to seara or seara.com for the brands You want it the prices that let you do it all from athletic to a flatish seara's got it Two good and co-coffee creamers are made with farm-fresh cream real milk and contain three grams of sugar per serving That's 40% less than the five grams per serving and leading traditional coffee creamers for a rich delicious Experience whether you enjoy your coffee hot cold bold or frothy two good coffee creamers make every sip a good one Two good coffee creamers real goodness in every sip find them at your local croaker in the creamer aisle See how the Antarctic peninsula looks just like South America, but upside down

1:03This isn't just a coincidence. It's the ghost of a 30 million year old break up These continents were once connected, but their divorce gave birth to an ocean current so powerful It was capable of completely freezing Antarctica and shaping its landscape Here's how it went down Tectonic plates pulled a sneaky move and cracked open a ridiculously narrow passage in the ocean about only 500 miles wide forcing 4.5 trillion cubic feet of water to flow inside this geological straw This was the birth of an ocean current stronger than the Amazon River This ocean current called the Antarctic circumpolar current by the way flows in a circular motion Going clockwise because of the strong winds that blow over there This circular motion around Antarctica caused erosion Shaping the landmass of the continent into a circle except for that stubborn peninsula Which is being slowly dragged east like a kid refusing to leave a playground

2:04Wait South America and Antarctica used to be one Yep, a long time ago South America, Australia and Antarctica were all part of a supercontinent called Gondwana which also included Africa at some point Back then South America and Antarctica used to be basically joined at the hip by a land bridge called the Antarctic land bridge Which just so happened to be a lush green forest and also a great dinosaur highway Yeah, you heard it right Dinosaurs a 95 million year old dyno whose name I can't pronounce Sorry was discovered in Australia and scientists found out it had actually been a distant cousin of Argentina's Sarmiento Soros Same jaw same chisel teeth same everything These guys were like identical twins separated by an ocean how Because back then Antarctica wasn't a frozen wasteland It was a temperate rainforest like Oregon making it a pretty nice travel route for a dyno family

3:09But the land bridge wasn't just This episode is brought to you by Peloton break through the busiest time of year with the brand new Peloton cross-training tread plus Powered by Peloton IQ with real-time guidance and endless ways to move You can personalize your workouts and train with confidence helping you reach your goals in less time Let yourself run lift sculpt push and go explore the new Peloton cross-training tread plus at one Peloton dot com Introducing shark facial pro glow a first of its kind at home facial pro level extraction removes impurities and Dual-temperature technology boosts radiance and deep puffs with both insta heat and insta chill technology Treat yourself to a hydro fueled glow in minutes and because shark facial pro glow fits in the palm of your hand You can get that luminous post-baw glow anywhere visit shark beauty dot com to learn more For dinosaurs about 40 million years ago the ancestors of Australia's marsupials

4:12Waddled to the land down under all the way from South America taking the Antarctica route Another proof that these continents used to be connected Things remained somewhat peaceful for the dinos and the marsupials until Earth's ground started moving This is what a German scientist called the continental drift theory back in 1912 Our German friend here basically looked at the coast of South America and went hey This looks like it could fit into the coast of Africa Like a scientific Sherlock Holmes He noticed what others had overlooked for centuries the continents were clearly pieces of a larger puzzle And he was right Here's the deal Planet Earth is made of many layers of rocks and metals like a cosmic onion The outermost layer the lithosphere is divided into pretty solid tectonic plates that move a top a layer of softer somewhat molten rocks like slippery ice This is why the plates move in fact

5:13They've been rearranging Earth's face for billions of years with super continents forming and breaking apart in cycles Like a slow motion game of bumper cars This movement might be pretty slow since most tectonic plates only move 0 to 3.9 inches every year Except for the nausea plate racing ahead at 7.8 inches about as fast as your hair grows But don't let their snails pace fool you These shifting slabs are the ultimate planet shapers Their slow dance gives us everything from earthquakes that build mountains like the Himalayas to riffs that birth oceans like the Atlantic All because the oceanic crust is dense and sinks like a stone While continental crust floats like a cork It's this density difference that explains why continents exist at all Without it Earth would be completely covered by shallow seas This slow motion planetary renovation project is exactly what tore South America and Antarctica apart 30 million years ago

6:18The plates under these continents started to drift apart in a process called crustal extension It's like the lithosphere was pizza dough being slowly stretched until it thins and splits As the crust stretched it became thinner and weaker eventually cracking like the surface of a drying lake bed This whole thing gave birth to a new tectonic plate the Scotia plate that emerged between South America and Antarctica like a geological divorce lawyer For a while parts of this plate stayed above water as the last gasp of the Antarctic land bridge It was Earth's version of that one thread still connecting your hoodie after the zipper breaks These final connections might have persisted as chains of islands But just like that frang hoodie the connection couldn't last forever Eventually this small but mighty plate became the final nail in the coffin of the land bridge connecting the two continents Just like all the tectonic plates This one was also on the move As it expanded eastward it opened a new passage of water called the Drake passage

7:23Slowly covering the Antarctic land bridge with ocean water The process was like pulling open elevator doors at first just a crack Then wider and wider until the connection was completely broken This geographical divorce had chilling consequences The new Drake passage allowed the Antarctic's circumpolar current to form Creating an endless loop of cold water that isolated Antarctica Spring is here and the shopping list is long time to make a lows run Buy three bags get three free of stay green one cubic foot garden soil Plus right now members can earn four times the points on an eligible purchase Start spring off strong with these deals and more our best lineup is here at Loves Valentine 325 while supplies last soil offer excludes Alaska and Hawaii loyalty program subject to terms and conditions Sealows comms less terms for details subject to change point booster subject to exclusions and more terms apply one time only offer Shaped its land and even cooled the entire planet This current acts like a wall around Antarctica blocking warm water and invasive species while regulating global climate

8:30Eventually Antarctica turned into an ice box that is 98% covered in ice sheets and that holds about 61% of earth's fresh water Now a days this continent holds the title of the windiest driest and iciest place on earth It's a frozen desert where temperatures plunge below negative 128.6 degrees Fahrenheit Cold enough to freeze your breath mid air A layer of ice there can be more than a mile thick and it expands even further in winter to cover an area larger than the continental United States Today if you want to travel to Antarctica the quickest sea route is through the Drake passage a 500 mile wide body of water that is narrow enough for the winds to scream across thousands of miles Transforming into monstrous waves that can tower up to 49 feet Though calm days create waves only 13 to 16 feet high Still twice as tall as Atlantic waves mind you

9:31This is probably why sailors call this stretch of ocean the Drake shake But tectonic movement isn't just about shifting continents. It's earth's ultimate life support system You see about half of our planet's heat comes from radioactive decay in the core Thanks uranium 235 Something like nature's nuclear reactor This heat is behind everything from volcanoes to the very plate motion that once connected Antarctica to South America And it only comes out of the core because of tectonic movement Without this internal heat engine earth would be just like Mars When the plates move and release heat they also release CO2 gases into the atmosphere Regulating the temperature of our planet and when the plates move underwater They take a lot of this CO2 back to earth's interior recycling all this gas This is why the plates can change our air climate and even the evolution of life itself just by moving around

10:34But billions of years ago these plates were not moving around Back then it was like earth was wearing a solid ceramic shell with many cracks But even without tectonic movement the heat managed to escape through these cracks in a process called Stagnant lid tectonics kick-starting all life on earth And no tectonic movement is not a thing of the past Earthquakes are the living proof that it is not just happening today But might repeat again on a more dramatic scale in the future You see to form super continents like Pangaea smaller mega continents have to dive beneath another And scientists predict that a similar process might create a new super continent Called Pangaea Proxima in 250 million years By then humans might be extinct or living on Mars But earth tectonic dance will continue even without us Not bad for something that moves more slowly than a traffic jam

11:35Turns out Antarctica and South America used to be BFFs before all that tectonic drama split them up Like a messy breakup that literally froze one of them out Now they just awkwardly mirror each other from across the drake passage Classic axes How many discounts does USA auto insurance offer? Too many to say here Multi-vehicle discount safe driver discount uh new vehicle discount storage discount How many discounts will you stack up? Tap the banner or visit us a.com slash auto discounts restrictions apply The UPS store is making Pangaea shipping Easter gifts quicker than ever this year with UPS A How quick quicker than a walk around the park quicker than eating all the Easter candies Quicker than finding a golden egg that you know is stuffed with cash When you ship UPS air at the UPS store your items arrive on time or your money back Guaranteed at no extra cost exclusively at the UPS store US retail locations Send Easter jewel on time at the UPS store Visit the UPS store.com slash air guarantee for full details terms and conditions apply