Product Description

It was the greatest flood of the past two million years, and it posed a giant scientific riddle. A maverick geologist became convinced that thousand-foot-deep floodwaters had scoured out vast areas of the American northwest near the end of the last ice age. Mainstream scientists scorned his theory while he searched patiently for answers to what could have triggered such an inconceivably violent event. Finally, an ingenious solution silenced the skeptics: traces of an enormous ice dam half a mile high, which had blocked a valley in present-day Montana and created an enormous lake behind it. With the help of stunningly realistic animation, NOVA takes viewers back to the Ice Age to reveal what happened when the dam broke, unleashing a titanic flood that swept herds of woolly mammoth and everything else into oblivion.

Special DVD features include: materials and activities for educators; a link to the NOVA Web site; scene selections; closed captions; and described video for the visually impaired.

On one DVD5 disc. Region coding: All regions. Audio: Dolby stereo. Screen format: Letterboxed.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #54064 in DVD
• Brand: Nova
• Released on: 2006-01-03
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Formats: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, Letterboxed, NTSC, Widescreen
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 56 minutes

Customer Reviews

Science and how it works
As Louis Pastuer said when accepting an award from the French Academy of Science "No new idea is accepted by science without resistance". This idea of a great flood was a revolutionary idea. The resistance was based on what was known by geologists at the time. Frequently, a new idea must wait for acceptance as a mainstream belief until the old scientists are dead and the younger scientists who grew with the idea are then in charge. I will be using this video in a geology course not just for the geology but as an example of how science works and how ideas evolve.

Northwestener's Required Viewing
I originally stumbled onto this video while routinely watching NOVA. I sat spellbound and immediately ordered our own family copy. While this geologic event may seem most meaningful to Northwestern residents, it has some ageless philosophical as well as scientific overtones. It also provides a glimpse into the extreme natural swings in climate change that happened a relatively short time ago without any influence by man. And it provides a classic historical lesson that valid scientific conclusions should not be based on a popular vote.

Truly Exciting Nonfiction
NOVA at its very best deals with a scientific investigation by telling fascinating stories with pictures. This film is a superb example. We learn that during the last ice age, an ice dam half a mile high blocked a valley in Montana, creating an enormous lake behind it. Then, for reasons explained in the film, the dam suddenly collapsed, releasing a towering wall of water that pushed along everything in its way. The theory is nicely explained with a combination of footage from actual geological sites and animation that shows how these sites probably came to be. And then we learn this happened not once, but many times, as Earth went through extreme periods of warming and cooling long before humans arrived on the scene.

Any would-be documentarian should study this film (and others like it) to learn how to get beyond tedious interviews and uninspiring B-roll footage to a truly exciting way to present nonfiction on video.