Rocks of Ages Basalt: A Journey to the Pacific Ring of Fire (2016)

• 75%
• 2016
• Documentary
• Petra Haffter

For millions of years rocks have formed the fundament man moves on over the earth. Rocks are everywhere, so they are said to be the memory of our planet. How can a sandstone landscape be pastel pink and another is full of colorful dramatic lines? Why is one basalt boulder rough and porous while another appears as fine and polished as glass? Where do the rich granite boulders come from in an otherwise flat plain? What is the difference between granite and basalt and - why aren't all the craters on earth of volcanic origin? In my trips to spectacular places characterized by highly concentrated deposits of rock - the basalt on the Pacific Ring of Fire, the sandstone in the American West, granite in the cold French Atlantic and the marble quarries in Rajasthan - I find answers. The landscape I travel through may be read like an open book. I see the difference between granite, which cools deep in the earth's interior, and the boiling lava, that solidifies to basalt once it hits the surface. The idea "solid as a rock" is disproved. Even stone is in motion. In sedimentary rocks I find minerals and traces of dinosaurs. From wet granite colossi I walk through petrified waves and across crystal sharp lava to fire-breathing mountains. I look back and forward and in my travels through the Stone Age meet people who deal in rocks: caveman, quarry workers, artists, scientists, mystics and at end of my adventure accompany meteorite hunters searching for witnesses from another planet.