Introductions all around- the podcast, the period of time we’ll be exploring, and the host. We’ll start by scaling Earth’s entire history down to a manageable 365 days.

How can rocks tell us the stories of ancient Earth- stories of magma, water, and life? To answer that question, we look at a few common rock types and examine how they formed.

Our introductory trilogy on deep time ends by tackling an important question: How do we know how old the Earth is?

We finally start the tale of Earth’s history from the beginning, in the cold depths of outer space. The Sun is born and the first asteroids assemble. When these asteroids crash into Earth today, they provide time capsules from the beginning of the solar system.

Extra credit: look for the Orion Nebula in the night sky, or go meteorite hunting with a friend.

How did Earth grow from ant-size to, well… Earth-size? What perils did it face along the way? And how was the early Earth like a fine vinaigrette?

Extra credit: try to freeze a mixture of oil and vinegar before they separate.

Today, we'll learn how deep humans have traveled into the planet, and how we know what's even deeper down. We'll meet mineral oozes, coils of liquid iron, and a Danish woman from the 1930s who discovered the center of the Earth.

Extra credit: Make a tin-can telephone, find an inductor in one of your electric appliances, or look for an aurora.

Earth's first oceans were hundreds of times deeper than the Pacific and made of molten rock. Where did they come from, where did they go? What stuff was in them, how do we know? Today, let's dive in and see how these oceans turned into today's mantle.

Extra credit: Drink a glass of ice water, watch The Core (2003), or see if you can find a garnet in your home or a museum.

Our Moon is unlike any other in the solar system, and the story of its' birth is truly extraordinary. This episode, we'll weigh the evidence for various Moon origin stories alongside Neil Armstrong, George Darwin, and more recent scientists. In the end, truth is stranger than fiction.

Extra credit: Take some time for yourself and have a good long look at the moon.

My guest today is Dr. Ella Holme, a postdoc at Yale University. Dr. Holme talks about her research on the mineral olivine as a potential antidote for climate change. Olivine can remove carbon dioxide from air and water, and further research into this mineral can help counteract increasing CO2 emissions. We also talk about how olivine is like the Hulk, and how Dr. Holme's path into geology started from childhood fears of tsunamis, climate change, and... werewolves.

Dr. Holme's Twitter: @BandedEllaFrmtn

My guest today is Dr. Nadja Drabon, a new professor at Harvard University. Dr. Drabon talks about her new discoveries of zircon crystals from South Africa that are more than 4 billion years old, some of the oldest fragments of Earth. Together, we learn just how much we don't know about Earth's earliest days, and what her discoveries can teach us about our planet's ancient secrets. We also talk about her field location in South Africa: the Barberton Greenstone Belt, a new UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Dr. Drabon's website: https://drabon.eps.harvard.edu

The Earth of 4.5 billion years ago was perhaps the most alien version of our world, thanks to a collision with a rogue planet. Days and nights were six times shorter, the newborn Moon was as close as a weather satellite, and everything was covered with a sea of magma. Today, we learn how the Moon transformed from a giant Eye of Sauron into our pale nighttime companion.

Extra credit: Squeeze a stress ball, eat only one color of candy, and try to solve this week's hidden word puzzle.

What is the oldest thing on our planet? How old is it, and where was it found?

Today, we tell the story of a worldwide, decades-long hunt for a single grain of sand. We'll journey to underground magma chambers, the sun-baked Australian Outback, and the lair of a giant shrimp.

Extra credit: Let a handful of sand run through your fingers, or go pressure-wash something.

The idea of plate tectonics is the cornerstone of modern geology.

But it wasn't always that way, and it wasn't an easy idea to sell. Today, we'll meet two scientists who faced ridicule for proposing continental drift: a German climatologist and an American cartographer, the greatest of her generation. We'll also meet a lost expedition to Greenland, the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, and Jacques Cousteau.

Extra credit: Look at maps of the ocean floor, or try to align the continents in various patterns on a map.

How is new crust made, and why isn't the Earth constantly expanding like a party balloon? To answer these questions, we'll track the life, death, and rebirth of Earth's surface. Stops along the way include the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, a prize-fight between tectonic plates beneath New Zealand, and a stop for dessert on the Italian island of Vulcano.

Extra credit: Experiment with your carpets at home, pushing them together and testing which one sinks beneath the other.

When did Earth's crust form?

It's easy to take the ground beneath our feet for granted, but the story of our crust's origins is one of the most hotly debated topics in Earth history. Today, we'll learn about how elements inside zircon crystals can help solve this mystery. In fact, the element hafnium was discovered inside a zircon by two researchers who also helped keep gold and scientists out of German hands in World War II.

Extra credit: Look at table salt under a microscope, or find different colors of quartz in your local mineral collections.

How did water arrive on planet Earth?

Today, we learn just how much water Earth has (spoiler: probably not as much as you'd think), and where it came from in the first place. We'll take a joyride around the early solar system, learn how our stellar neighborhood is like a snow-capped mountain, and discover how the planet Jupiter might have played a crucial role in creating the oceans of Earth.

Extra credit: Drink some water, make a snowball, or watch the Kevin Costner classic Waterworld.

How do we know when the first oceans existed?

Water leaves its' fingerprints over every surface of Earth, even in the oldest, toughest crystals. Today, we'll take an imaginary ride through the earliest oceans, examine how water slowly transforms everything it touches, and how these changes are recorded in the Jack Hills zircons, 4.4 billion years ago.

Extra Credit: Make an underwater rock garden, walk into a muddy beach, or visit a dog park.

When did life arise on planet Earth?

Today, we look at the search for biological remains in the oldest minerals on Earth, the Jack Hills zircons of Western Australia, 4.4-4.0 billion years ago. We learn why carbon is an excellent building block for life, how to turn that carbon into diamonds and graphite, and why it's very hard to find conclusive fossils in very old rocks.

Extra credit: Try to find all the things in your house that have carbon in them. Bonus points if you can find graphite or diamonds.

My guest today is Dr. Joti Rouillard, a research fellow at the University of Science and Technology in Hefei, China. Dr. Rouillard talks about his research on the earliest fossils on Earth, microscopic bacteria 3.5 billion years old. It turns out, identifying a fossil bacteria is extremely difficult since they resemble other tiny non-living objects. We also talk about working in the Australian Outback, kangaroo encounters, and what happens when you mix alcohol and rocks.

Dr. Rouillard's email: joti.rouillard@gmail.com

Miniseries Episode 1

The frozen continent holds many secrets, including some of the most ancient stones in the world, the Napier Complex 3.8 billion years old. Today we'll learn what things lurk in the ice, and a harrowing story of polar survival from an Australian geologist, Sir Douglas Mawson.