We love this landmark ABC series, which chronicles the history of planet and how it relates to Australia.
Of all continents on Earth, none preserve the story of the formation of our planet and the evolution of life quite like Australia. Nowhere else can you simply jump in a car and travel back through the entire history of the world. 'Australia: The Time Traveller's Guide' takes you on a rollicking adventure from the birth of the Earth to the emergence of the world we know today. Buckle up for a rocky ride down the Road of Time with series host Dr Richard Smith. Over four one-hour episodes, we meet titanic dinosaurs and giant kangaroos, sea monsters and prehistoric crustaceans, disappearing mountains and exploding asteroids. Epic in scope, intimate in nature, this is the untold story of the land Down Under, the one island continent that has got it all. So join the good Doctor for the ultimate Outback road trip: an exploration of the history of the planet as seen through the mind-altering window of the Australian continent.
This episode starts right at the beginning of time, for our solar system and planet, and incorporates: The Hadean (formation of earth), Archean (rocks and plates begin to form), Proterozoic (primitive life forms), Cryogenian (Snowball earth), Ediacaran (multi-cellular organisms) and Cambrian (Cambrian explosion).
This episode starts right at the Ordovician (diverse marine invertebrates), Silurian (evolution and diversification of fish), Devonian (Age of Fishes), Carboniferous (Age of Amphibians), Permian (formation of Pangaea and the Permian extinction).
This episode starts at the Triassic (Age of Reptiles), Jurassic (a golden time for dinosaurs), Cretaceous (age of dinosaurs), finishing with the meteorite strike which caused the mass extinction of the dinosaurs.
This is our favourite episode as it chronicles the evolution of our marsupials. Starting with the Paleogene (emergence of mammals), Neogene (replacement of forests with grasslands), Quaternary (rise and extinction of the mega fauna), Anthropocene (rise of humans).
