NOVA: Mystery of the Megaflood (2005)

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Starring: Stacy Keach; Peter Thomas (VI); Don Wescott
Rated: NR (Not Rated)
Type: DVD
Directed By: not listed
Studio: WGBH Boston
Release Date: 2006-01-03
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.

Great for younger audiences
Once again Nova ignites the love of learning! My 7 year old loves this DVD, but then again we're locals. We live in the middle of the Purcell Trench, drive through part of the Scablands to see one set of grandparents and were just in Missoula last summer with the other set.

Nonetheless, the formation of the Scablands is such an amazingly catastrophic event that it has to be interesting to almost everybody. A flood averaging over 10 cubic miles an hour for two whole days has to excite the imagination, and the flood floor is fully visible.

For adults, there's a bit too much un-required jerking in the camera work. An accurate map of the Scablands, the ice dam, and Glacial Lake Missoula, each of which are roughly 100 miles apart would have been nice as well. These are minor flaws and are easily remedied by picking up a copy of the book "Glacial Lake Missoula" by David Alt.

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.

an excellent theory...
It's 'too bad' that we may never have 'definitive' proof of the theory of a series of megafloods, combined with-demonstrated by layers of extracta from Mt St Helens that tends to support this theory now.
Wisdom has shown that as old theories die, new ones, but not necessarily accurate ones take their place. I'm not a geologist, but these theories certainly tend to disprove certain prior idea(s) that the earth is only about 6,000 years old.
This is an EXCELLENT production that all but the least scientific among us will probably appreciate, if only on an 'armchair' basis.
So much for religion...

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.