Eons: Surviving Deep Time

PBS

Season 2 of the Eons podcast will be a longform exploration of a question we’re often asked in the comments section of our YouTube videos: how long could a human survive if they were dropped into a particular period of the geologic past?

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20 episodes
Updated Mar 18, 2025

Episodes20

Newest first

Mar 18, 2025 · 1 hr 12 min
Will We Survive The Future? (with John Green!)
Humans have become a force of nature, but will we survive ourselves?
Mar 4, 2025 · 52 min
Which Evolutionary Niche Does Humankind Occupy? (Mailbag Episode!)
The Eons hosts answer your questions about deep time.
Feb 18, 2025 · 1 hr 11 min
Could You Survive Living With Other Hominin Species?
In the Early Pleistocene Epoch, other upright-walking hominins roamed the Earth. Could you survive living with other hominin species?
Feb 4, 2025 · 1 hr 3 min
Could You Survive The Messinian Salinity Crisis?
In the Late Miocene Epoch the Mediterranean Sea was blocked from the Atlantic Ocean and became a desert. Could you survive in that salty, desolate landscape?
Jan 21, 2025 · 59 min
Could You Survive The K-Pg Extinction?
Could you make it through the darkest days of planet Earth?
Jan 7, 2025 · 54 min
Could You Survive On Hateg Island?
Could you survive the Late Cretaceous on Tiny-Dino Island?
Dec 10, 2024 · 55 min
Could You Survive The End-Triassic?
The aftermath of the Great Dying resulted in the rise of a bunch of weird creatures and ended with another catastrophic extinction event.
Nov 26, 2024 · 55 min
Could You Survive The Great Dying?
Could you survive the volcanic event that wiped out most terrestrial and marine life at the end of the Permian Period?
Nov 12, 2024 · 54 min
Could You Survive The Carboniferous?
The swamps of the Late Carboniferous Period teemed with giant insects and welcomed the first fully terrestrial vertebrates. Could you survive?
Oct 29, 2024 · 50 min
Could You Survive The End-Ordovician Extinction?
The End-Ordovician Extinction was the first of the so-called ‘Big Five’ mass extinctions in the history of life on Earth - could you survive its aftermath?
Oct 15, 2024 · 43 min
Could You Survive The Cambrian Explosion?
In a strange world before plants made their way onto land… could you survive?
Oct 1, 2024 · 55 min
Could You Survive The Devonian Period? (with Hank Green!)
Our distant relative figured out how to survive 380 million years ago, can you?
Sep 26, 2024 · 1 min
Introducing Eons: Surviving Deep Time
How long could a human survive if they were dropped into a particular period of the geologic past?
Sep 21, 2024 · 22 sec
The Eons Podcast is returning!
Season 2 of the Eons podcast is coming soon! This season will be a longform exploration of a question we’re often asked: how long could a human survive if they were dropped into a particular period of the geologic past?
Jul 25, 2022 · 17 min
What Happened To The Neandertals?
No one looks in the mirror today and sees a Neandertal looking back – and it’s pretty uncontroversial for us to say that Neandertals are extinct. But are they really gone?
Jul 11, 2022 · 20 min
Who Were The Denisovans?
A discovery in a cave in the Altai Mountains reveals a mysterious branch of the human family tree: the Denisovans.
Jun 27, 2022 · 17 min
What Did The Past Sound Like?
Using modern environments, living representatives of ancient groups, and fossil anatomy, paleontologists have attempted to reconstruct what the past sounded like.
Jun 13, 2022 · 18 min
The Lost Human Fossils of World War II
Between 1927 and 1937, paleontologists excavated Homo erectus fossils from a site in China. And then World War II broke out and the fossils were lost.
May 31, 2022 · 40 min
Why Do We Care About What Happened Millions Of Years Ago? (Mailbag Episode with Hank Green)
Hank Green joins Kallie, Michelle, and Blake for a special Q&A episode.
May 16, 2022 · 19 min
The Strange Graveyard At The Cleveland-Lloyd Dinosaur Quarry
Fossils from predatory dinosaurs outnumber those of prey species 3-to-1 at the Cleveland-Lloyd Dinosaur Quarry. Why?