The Evolutionary Process That Took Place In Order to Make North America Look the Way It Does

In a new Ted Ed video, educator Peter J. Haproff explained, via beautiful animation by Miguel Otálora of Globizco, the evolutionary process that took place over millions of years to make North America look the way it currently does.

North America didn’t always have its familiar shape, nor its famed mountains, canyons, and plains: all of that was once contained in an unrecognizable mass, buried deep in Rodinia, a huge supercontinent that lay on the face of the Earth. Peter J. Haproff explains how it took millions of years and some incredible plate tectonics to forge the continent we know today.