NOVA: Life's Rocky Start

What is the secret link between rocks and minerals, and every living thing on Earth?

Four and a half billion years ago, the young Earth was a hellish place — a seething chaos of meteorite impacts, volcanoes belching noxious gases, and lightning flashing through a thin, torrid atmosphere.

Then, in a process that has puzzled scientists for decades, life emerged. How did it happen?

On "Life's Rocky Start," NOVA joins mineralogist Robert Hazen on the rocky trail to resolve this enduring mystery.

As Hazen journeys around the globe — from an ancient Moroccan market to the Australian Outback — he advances a startling and counterintuitive idea — that the rocks beneath our feet were not only essential to jump-starting life, but then, as microbes flourished and took over the biosphere, life helped give birth to hundreds of minerals we know and depend on today.

This intriguing perspective of the co-evolution of Earth and life is reshaping the grand-narrative of our planet’s story.

In this stunning adventure through billions of years of history, the story of life on Earth is revealed as fundamentally interwoven with the epic, unfolding story of Earth itself.

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Robert Hazen studies thin slices of rock under a microscope in his lab at the Carnegie Institution.

Courtesy of Doug Hamilton/ WGBH Boston

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Goethite (California) from the collections of the Mineralogical & Geological Museum at Harvard University.

Courtesy of Rob Tinworth/ WGBH Boston

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Calcite (Cumbria, England) from the collections of the Mineralogical & Geological Museum at Harvard University.

Courtesy of Rob Tinworth/ WGBH Boston

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Azurite (Arizona) from the collections of the Mineralogical & Geological Museum at Harvard University.

Courtesy of Rob Tinworth/ WGBH Boston

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Flourite (Cumbria, England) from the collections of the Mineralogical & Geological Museum at Harvard University.

Courtesy of Rob Tinworth/ WGBH Boston

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Labradorite (Madagascar) from the collections of the Mineralogical & Geological Museum at Harvard University.

Courtesy of Rob Tinworth/ WGBH Boston

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Rhodochrosite (Peru) from the collections of the Mineralogical & Geological Museum at Harvard University.

Courtesy of Rob Tinworth/ WGBH Boston

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Malachite (Arizona) from the collections of the Mineralogical & Geological Museum at Harvard University.

Courtesy of Rob Tinworth/ WGBH Boston

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Variscite (Utah) from the collections of the Mineralogical & Geological Museum at Harvard University.

Courtesy of Rob Tinworth/ WGBH Boston

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A trilobite from the collections of the Museum of Comparative Zoolology at Harvard University.

Courtesy of Rob Tinworth/ WGBH Boston

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Close up of one of the oldest fossils of life on Earth from 3.4 billion years ago.

Courtesy of Doug Hamilton/ WGBH Boston

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A tooth from an ancient mega-shark found near the Chesapeake Bay, Maryland.

Courtesy of Doug Hamilton/ WGBH Boston

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Martin Van Kranendonk and David Flannery inspect a 2.7-billion-year-old stromatolite fossil.

Courtesy of Doug Hamilton/ WGBH Boston

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Living stromatolites at Shark Bay, Australia.

Courtesy of Doug Hamilton/ WGBH Boston

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