SciShow - 2021-04-14
This episode is brought to you by the Music for Scientists album! Stream the album on major music services here: https://streamlink.to/music-for-scientists. Check out “The Idea” music video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUyT94aGmbc. You might think of plate tectonics as destructive since it's the ultimate force behind earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanic eruptions. But the slow movement of our planet's surface does a lot more than shake things up now and then. Some scientists think life may never have survived without it! Hosted by: Stefan Chin SciShow has a spinoff podcast! It's called SciShow Tangents. Check it out at http://www.scishowtangents.org ---------- Support SciShow by becoming a patron on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/scishow ---------- Huge thanks go to the following Patreon supporters for helping us keep SciShow free for everyone forever: Silas Emrys, Drew Hart, Jeffrey Mckishen, James Knight, Christoph Schwanke, Jacob, Matt Curls, Christopher R Boucher, Eric Jensen, Adam Brainard, Nazara Growing Violet, Ash, Laura Sanborn, Sam Lutfi, Piya Shedden, Katie Marie Magnone, Scott Satovsky Jr, charles george, Alex Hackman, Chris Peters, Kevin Bealer, Alisa Sherbow How Tectonic Plates Shape Life... and Vice Versa Life Might Never Have Existed Without Volcanos Without Volcanoes, Earth Might be Dead ---------- Looking for SciShow elsewhere on the internet? Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/scishow Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/scishow Tumblr: http://scishow.tumblr.com Instagram: http://instagram.com/thescishow ---------- Sources: https://arxiv.org/abs/1706.10282 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0012825220303445 https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1029/JC086iC10p09776 https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/earths-tectonic-activity-may-be-crucial-for-life-and-rare-in-our-galaxy/ https://www.nature.com/articles/ngeo2707 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0012821X18300785?via%253Dihub#! https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1342937X15001537 https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/07/180730172814.htm https://arxiv.org/abs/1712.03614 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0032063313002663 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0031018206000289 http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20170111-the-unexpected-ingredient-necessary-for-life https://theconversation.com/does-a-planet-need-plate-tectonics-to-develop-life-61303 https://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/habitableworlds2017/pdf/4034.pdf https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/2014GB005054 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1674987115300062 https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.589.2620&rep=rep1&type=pdf https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC34224/ https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.589.2620&rep=rep1&type=pdf https://www.britannica.com/science/igneous-rock/Classification-of-volcanic-and-hypabyssal-rocks https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1342937X15001537 Images: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kepler-22_diagram.jpg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pleiades_large.jpg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:InteriorOfVenus.svg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Apollo_15_sample_15486_S71-44250.jpg https://www.eurekalert.org/multimedia/pub/239282.php https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Weathering_Limestone_State_College_PA.jpg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:M15-162b-EarthAtmosphere-CarbonDioxide-FutureRoleInGlobalWarming-Simulation-20151109.jpg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Seashells_North_Wales_1985.jpg
It's incredible that we were barely teaching about plate tectonics by the time we were sending men to the moon. Nuts!
Very interesting. I never figured that the relationship between tectonics and life went the other way
It's nice to see crossover between the different scishow channels. This definitely felt almost like a scischow space video!
Im a geology student, so when I saw this video in my suggestions, I IMMEDIATELY clicked. 💗 Gimme the rock knowledge.
Same here, im at the uni of iceland and have gone twice to see the Geldingadalur volcano.
How do you geology?
@lapatron555 Damn, iceland must be ideal for a geology student
@Charlie Hopley Have you heard what the rock is cooking?
After watching this channel I’ve seriously considered going back to school for some kind of geology or biology degree.
I’m an animator and game designer, it’s so random 😂
Looks like it's time to watch the "history of the entire world, i guess" again. Idk why, but whenever I hear "The sun a deadly Lazer [sic]" and "the cambrian explosion" I just have to rewatch that video again lol.
I feel this at a personal level. lol
It's like if everything that happens on earth today is intrinsically connected to what happened in the past and cannot have happened without said past.
Alan Dean Foster wrote an entire 3 book series that partly hinged on plate tectonics, though not in the way this video explains it. This video suggests planets need plate tectonics in order to have life. Foster suggested that tectonically active planets produce aggressive intelligent life while dormant planets with a single supercontinent produced calmer intelligent life.
no thoughts, just shifting plates on a giant rock flowing through space
Return to monke
hey emily
hey Diddkong7
@Justin Davis reject homosapien
hey @I COME IN PEACE
Correction: granite formations have been identified on Venus, which is part of the evidence used in making those hypotheses that Venus once had plate tectonics, but lost it with the planet's oceans boiling away.
Earth is already known to NOT be the only planet with granite.
Tectonic Plates may also be why we have so much water. A recent study indicates that water gets constantly embedded into the crust and as that continues, all the the liquid water would eventually disappear; but Plate Tectonics changes that is it continually liberates the water from the crust - mostly via volcanos. Mars (which does not have Plate Tectonics) may have lost its water not to space, but rather to its crust.
Plate tectonics plays a vital role in the carbon cycle and water cycle here on earth. As well as other minerals and compounds described in this video. And while we are fairly sure water is trapped in the crust of Mars. We are also reasonably sure surface water was lost mostly to space. Without tectonics to cycle the water into the crust. The past volcanic activity would have removed much of it from the crust. Without a clear mechanism to replace or reintroduce it to the deeper subsurface. This may also play a part in the current dormancy or extinction of Mars volcanism. We will learn more as we get more data. Specifically seismic data over the next few years.
A compilation video on all things volcano would be great, particularly because of all the interesting things ongoing at the eruption on La Palma in the Canary Islands. Your back catalog on this is great, btw
I love learning about rocks! But then again, I like learning about most "sciency" things. Nice episode! 👍😊🌍🌎🌏
Any chance that you'll cover the Brood X cicadas on the east coast? 17 years until your next chance!
In biology there is no "phosphorous" (highly chemically reactive), only "phosphate", which is the most abundant intracellular anion.
That is very interesting. I thought plate tectonic was due to convection from the upper mantle, but I learned it wasn't always a thing watching PBS eons.
However, I have a problem with the theory that life is responsible for plate tectonics. If I can see how life can accentuate plate tectonic once it's started, I don't see how it can make it start in the first place. If you have no plate tectonics, what is doing the subduction? What is putting the stuff life is accumulating in the oceans and on earth back into the mantle?
Interesting to think about! But some studies have found that the earth didn't always have 'plate tectonics', it might have had a 'stagnant lid' tectonic system, where the plates didn't move but stayed still. Subduction still occured though, as slabs of the denser crusts sinked down into the mantle. Still very controversial though haha
"You wouldn't think that plankton can make a difference on something the scale of a whole planet." Um.... Oxygen catastrophe, anyone?
I think he meant the actual planet and not on a worldwide scale. Of course life can have an effect on other life and atmospheric conditions but the fact it can literally change the planet itself is astounding
@Bob The Goat Check out the Oxygen Catastrophe - we already knew that microscopic life could and did literally change "the planet itself". Just as one point: Until photosynthetic life existed, metals like iron in their reduced state could exist on the surface because there was no free oxygen. Afterward, they couldn't for long. That's not to mention that atmospheric conditions are part of the planet itself. I think you meant something like ..."change the lithosphere..." but life changed some of the fundamental building blocks of the lithosphere merely by breathing. Much of the iron and steel our civilization uses ultimately comes form banded iron formations that were created by cyanobacteria.
On most days I see humans as animals living off the earth and see earth as this passive background that live on. But every once in a while I see and appreciate how we come from and are earth, everything around us, including us, came from here. It all came from the elements contained on this ball floating thru space. The idea of Mother Earth is 100% accurate. For some reason this video triggered that change in my point of view today and I get a little taste of childlike wonder again
Earth Child💛
It also recycles the ground and replenishes the earth with new minerals.
The more I learn about the amazing energy and mass cycles of our planet, the less far out the Gaia hypothesis (the Earth as a whole is a self regulating 'organism') sounds. In spite of major upsets such as 'snow ball Earth' and 'hot house Earth' over Eon timescales, the planet seems to eventually recover to a more mild climate conducive to an incredible variety of life. Amazing!
Can you do a video on Iceland and the ongoing eruptions? It is so beautiful... and life giving!!!
Stay safe, stay sane, be well
Well, they didn't start up so I've been told due to other eruptions you know a chain reaction type thing?
@whesley hynes, W T Front panel? you need some serious counseling or prison time dude
Being Irish I'm a lover of the volcano as 65 million years ago a huge volcano made Ireland. We should pray to volcano's, the real life giver.
I HAVE A THEORY, that life ,Cyanobacteria to be exact, accelerated the mechanical weathering of our planet which led to it namesake.
Wadding Pool Photosynthesis> Atmosphere oxygenation> IceBall Earth > Loess > Terrestrial Life > Lush Jungles
Granite and basalt differ mostly due to Si and Al, not carbon.
To immediately jump to the conclusion that life influences plate tectonics is a HUGE claim, and would require much better evidence before reaching such conclusion.
Ok, if photosynthesis = plate tectonics = granitic rock, is there any way to tune our analysis of exoplanets to look for planets with granite? Seems like since photosynthesis also = oxygen = possibly of life as we know it.
More geology please :D <3
So If basalt is pushed under granite and melted . . Does that mean most of the fossils would have been melted down? . . Making it that much hard to have a consistent record
Yes. Also the ocean plates are recycled every 200 m years if I recall correctly.
I thought earth has tectonic plates from the wait of the
Oceans and what about pulling of moons and other planets
Always love learning new things
Sci show doesn’t have a episode on why we get chapped lips even when well hydrated :(
Only oceanic plates experience subduction - I know I knew that, but had never heard it be put so bluntly, very helpful, thanks!
While it is true that on the border of an oceanic plate and a continental plate it is the oceanic plate that is subducting, continental plates can subduct under other continental plates. This is how the Himalayas formed.
@KukulcanCan Thanks - you learn something, and something else pops up!
@KukulcanCan I think continental plates stay relatively close to the surface because of their density though. Even if one goes under the other, neither will get pushed deep into the mantle like oceanic crust.
@KukulcanCan I don't understand why the ocean floor would lock water under it and why that same ocean floor would subduct under basalt. Seems like the basalt would subduct under the ocean floor.
@Daniel Culver I think the velocity plays a big role in this outcome the former Indian continent was moving fast relative to typical tectonic plate motions and given the timing of that very rapid motion and its fairly antipodal position relative to the Chicxulub impact that might not be a coincidence. There was an acceleration of tectonic activity a little over 1.8 billion years ago also coinciding roughly with the Sudbury impact the last verified impact comparable to the one that ended the Cretaceous and there is a spike of major craters events on the Moon around the Neoproterozoic so those might bee related.
I don't understand why the ocean floor would lock water under it and why that same ocean floor would subduct under basalt. Seems like the basalt would subduct under the ocean floor.
thank you for the knowledge, easy to listen to :D
Moral of the video: "We shouldn't take things for granite, Morty".
But seriously, did anyone actually think of plate tectonics as mainly destructive rather than constructive?
We can't take granite for granted.
that's assuming that other alien species couldn't have evolved to use different elements to sustain themselves
I took geology this semester and plate tectonics is the most interesting topic
I loved our field trip to see the San Andreas fault! I still enjoy the topics decades later.
It's the most moving subject in the field. /s
I'm taking a geotectonics course right now! Geology is awesome
@Roberto Morales oh no I got a 97 on the exam... would’ve helped my friend in the class tho she didn’t really get this stuff
Geology was my favorite class, first time i tried coke was right before a presentation. 2014 was a good year
Without volcanoes Earth would still be a giant ice ball.
Plot twist; Plankton created earthquakes as an attempt to get the Krabby Patty formula :^)
Touching the granite countertops and going "earth rocks..." rn
Neat video! Thanks for uploading!
Our planet seems very special indeed.
there should be a crash Course Geology series
Nickelodeon once had this awful series called "thundermans" and there's a special that forms it's story entirely off the subversion of this logic.
So rust is. A sign of life or plate tectonics activity .
SO what if we find a planet made of rust . .
Pandemic-guy makes SciShow on his pajamas; working from home has its advantages.
(rising levels of sea water gives tidal forces more grip - more geothermal friction/geothermal activity)
There must be a nearly unlimited ad budget for that album...
Imagine if we change oumuamua direction to hit mars or another planet... To see what happens
Perfectly wonderful. Cant wait to get back to AMNH Hall of Planet Earth. All the cycles, plate tectonics and our stromatolites pumping out oxygen. Thank you!
SciShow - 2021-04-14
This episode is brought to you by the Music for Scientists album! Stream the album on major music services here: https://streamlink.to/music-for-scientists. Check out “The Idea” music video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUyT94aGmbc.
Salthin - 2021-04-15
This music is great!
Philip Emmons - 2021-04-15
55558DRCLIMAX10
Arlene Kirby - 2021-04-15
Hi my name is not arlene My name xander and I'm a kid and really want to know everything
Arlene Kirby - 2021-04-15
I'm a fan
Dakara mo Ikkai - 2021-04-17
Recently I've been trying to world build and artifexian is helpful but then scishow comes along and makes it seem impossible to do so... Thanks.