How North America got its shape - Peter J. Haproff

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.

Lesson by Peter J. Haproff, animation by Globizco.

[MrAlexkyra]

Would have been nice to cover the Ice Ages and how they led to the creation of the Great Lakes. Also interesting fact: Hudson bay is slowly bulging upward, it's still rebounding from the compression due to the mass of all the glacier ice during the last Ice Age

[McSmacks]

Basically a video about how the western US got it's shape, with a brief aside for the Appalachians. No mention of the Great Lakes, the Hudson Basin, or anything south of the Rio Grande.

[shortysbest]

I can't wait to be alive in 200M years to see how the world looks.

[nicotti]

I was hoping the video would cover when the middle of the USA was covered by shallow seas that created all the sedimentary rock.

[Maria_Itziin]

México is North America too, TED. What about the Pico de Orizaba or the Popocatépetl ??

[ferchotootall]

so this basically a video about how the US got its shape no Mexico and Canada

[MilanMilan]

I'm surprised you didn't mention the Canadian shield

[brandonhall]

A more accurate title would be how the U.S. got its shape.

[cynthia_ess]

this is just the states...what about canada and mexico?

[lucamunch]

"How North America got its shape" precedes to talk for the entire video about the U.S. west coast.

[Ethan-czxq]

Title: "How North America got its shape"
Proceeds to talk about only the US

This guy is a true American citizen.

[captainpalegg]

I’ve always thought the Americas were shaped like some kind of monster, and the Caribbean Islands were its prey.
• Great Lakes: an eye
• Gulf of Mexico: the mouth
• Central America: the neck
• Brazil: the stomach
• Chile and Argentina: the tail
• Honduras and Nicaragua: the beast’s most recent victim, just swallowed

[jn]

Thank you for teaching us!
You're great teacher.

[IndyThought]

I LOVE the artwork in this video, especially on the Yellowstone and Sierra Nevada artwork.

[anishac]

I love your videos, they're so interesting...can you make more of your 'riddle' videos, I've watched them all and I just can't wait until you upload another one to go into that playlist! Thank you for making these videos! 😀Xx

[coolmdj]

*+TED-Ed* This was a great lesson, geology-wise! I hope it's accurate enough because I liked everything about it. *P.S.-* It'd be great if similar lessons pop up about other continents and land masses explaining their _special_ geography...

[AcidtigerLP]

Wow, the art of this is absolutely gorgeous!

[charanth]

Please re title this to "How USA got its shape"

[brookevanostrand]

The Farallon plate, Phoenix plate, Izanagi plate all formed when Australia and Antarctica both moved away from Laurentia, that caused the breakup of supercontinent Rodinia.

[remingtonbianchi]

Ted Ed, ideas so worth sharing that Tedx talks don’t have comments.