Depths of Destruction

Depths of Destruction
Episode Information
Episode	9
Season	2
No. in Series	19
Air Date	March 9, 2010
Directed by	Colin Campbell
Produced by	Douglas J. Cohen (Executive Producer) Louis C. Tarantino (Executive Producer)
Wrtten by	Colin Campbell
Episode Guide
Previous	Sky's the Limit
Next	Take Me to Your Leader

Depths of Destruction is the ninth episode of season two of Life After People: The Series. It originally aired on March 9, 2010.

Synopsis

The underground and underwater world suffers a destructive destiny in a post-human era. Man made facilities like NORAD's facility at Cheyenne Mountain Complex in Colorado comes under assault while the echo chambers below the Capitol Records Building in Los Angeles would outlast the structure. The Satellite Transit System at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport continues to run and without consumption of power, The Geysers in Northern California relinquish their strength to geologic forces. Nature's subterranean returns to its original purpose with Carlsbad Caverns repopulates, the crystals of Naica Mine's Cave of the Crystals reflooded and grows larger, and prairie dogs returns to Lubbock, and being underwater, the Molinere Underwater Sculpture Park grows into coral reefs. The episode highlights the items recovered from the steamboat Arabia and explores the Bonne Terre Mine which is closed in 1962 and subsequently became partially flooded.

Plot

Prologue

Man was a surface creature by nature but humans engineered their domain in two directions, up toward the skies and down into the Earth by building complex mines, tunnels, and underground cities and as the further one descend, the stranger it gets in a life after people.

1 Hour After People

Above ground, Seattle's International Airport is quiet but 20 feet underground, the arrivals and departures continue. It is driven by computer and the people movers were designed to operate with no human involvement along with radio signals beamed from the master control room to ensure the trains don't collide. Steven S. Ross stated that the trains would glide into a station, doors would open and close, and the train would move onto the next stop making it ominous and ironic that the only thing moving in an airport is a train.

1 Day After People

In the mountains 70 miles north of San Francisco, a pungent mist bills the sky. Trouble is brewing at the largest geothermal complex in the world because underneath the 40 square mile complex, heat radiating from the very core of the Earth turns water into super heated steam which then blasting it towards the surface at a scalding 455 degrees Fahrenheit. Man constructed more than 20 power plants at the site and designed to capture and harness the searing natural power source. John Farison stated that it produce natural steam from the ground where the process starts by drilling wells deep into the ground that is several miles below, collecting the steam through pipelines, piping it over land to power plants, and converts steam energy into electrical power. 40%of all the geothermal power in the United States was produced at The Geysers and electricity is enough to power than a million homes but with the homes being empty, the carefully balanced system is teetering on the verge of collapse. Like other types of power plants, without people to use the electricity generated, the plant automatically shutdown causing the super heated steam from deep inside the planet to have no release and the pressure begins to build.

2 Days After People

Deep inside a Colorado mountain, humans controlled the power to destroy the world. Travis Taylor stated that the Cheyenne Mountain is a very large chunk of granite with a tunnel bored through the mountain and various other areas within it were excavated with one of the walls is a large steel door and behind it is a city build within. Inside the mountain is a massive complex once the home of NORAD, the North American Aerospace Defense Command. During the Cold War, it was there that American military commanders would coordinate the nation's response to a nuclear attack and it was built for one reason. Travis Taylor stated that the Cheyenne Mountain Complex was designed specifically to be able to withstand nuclear war and a multi-megaton explosion within a mile and a half of the complex. If a nuclear weapon exploded right outside the complex's 25-ton blast doors, the buildings inside might not even move an inch because the buildings were specially constructed to make sure that if the mountain moved, it wouldn't. Steven S. Ross stated that each building sits on a shock mountain meaning giant springs that isolate the buildings from shockwaves in the outside. Designed to withstand a nuclear blast, the Cheyenne Mountain Complex sits permanently at DEFCON nothing and the destruction of the once secret hideout would be an inside job.

3 Days After People

275 miles south of El Paso, Texas is a mountain in Mexico's Chihuahuan Desert, which conceals a secret, a massive crystal caverns and a hellish environment. The temperature reach nearly 130 degrees and humidity approaching 100%, humans couldn't survive for more than 15 minutes without special chilled suits that look like something astronauts would wear. However, the environment was perfect for the giant crystals with many more than 30 feet long and half a million years old with some weigh more than 55 tons. The crystals are made of gypsum, a mineral that have low thermal conductivity which make it fire resistant and it's a good insulator that it's a key ingredient in drywall and plaster. The crystals were submerged until miners installed pumps to drain the caves and to keep the cavers clear for mining, the pumps remove 22,000 gallons of water from the cave, every minute of the day. After people and with the power & pumps failing, water begins to reclaim the caves and as the water rises, the spectacular natural wonders might be dissolved away.

10 Days After People

Beneath the west Texas city of Lubbock, a subterranean town with a population of thousands still hums with life and according to scientists, the residents of the town might still be talking about humans in a life after people. Called the prairie dogs, which can dig subterranean complexes as big as the state of Maryland. John Hoogland stated that a prairie dog is not a dog but a rodent of the squirrel family and their closest relatives are ground squirrels, marmots, tree squirrels, and flying squirrels. Evidence show they develop their own language with different words to describe different predators including the most efficient predator, man. Barks and bobbing motion mean to watch out for a predator in an unique language and biologists believe the North American prairie dog population topped out at around 5 billion sometimes in the 18th century. But as the human population exploded on the continent, man mastered many techniques to cull a prairie dog colony from the slow and silent death of filling a burrow with toxic gas to the quick brutality of a long range kill shot and by the year 2000, the prairie dog lost 98% of it's former population. John Hoogland stated that the prairie dogs after people in urban settings would no longer have to worry about shooting and so when they wake up in the morning, they're not gonna have to worry whether somebody's behind the pickup truck tying to pick them off or poisoning. With no more bullets and gas as well the most deadly predator gone, the colony will be big.

1 Month After People

In the tunnels below Seattle's International Airport, a transportation system designed specifically to work without the presence of man has broken down. Steven S. Ross stated that the last of the emergency lights loses its power, the last battery gives out, and the semi-dark & ominous passenger cars become dark. The driverless trains sit powerless except for the emergency battery backups which keep the public address system working. The trains to oblivion and serves no one after people.

Meanwhile, a Hollywood landmark hides a secret in its depths. Steven S. Ross explains that the Capitol Records Building is an icon and was the first round office building built anywhere in the world with a feeling that is almost among most of the people in Los Angeles that the building was built by a record company and looks like a stack of records but the original press releases for the opening of the building and the documents that were produced for the tour guides shows that's not true and was just a happy accident. In addition to 3 ground floor recording studios, the Capitol Records Building is home to a buried treasure 30 feet under the building, where it exists one of the world's most acoustically perfect echo chambers. The cambers feature 10 inch thick concrete walls and ceilings made of concrete a foot thick which isolate them from outside noises and vibrations. The trapezoidal shape of the room is capable of creating an echo that lasts for up to 5 seconds, designed by electric guitar pioneer Les Paul, and it was used to provide a finishing touch on recordings by superstars such as Frank Sinatra and Nat King Cole. 1 month after people, the legendary chambers sit quiet but won't stay that way.

1 Year After People

Beneath the Mexican desert, the Naica crystal caves are flooded with steamy mineral rich water. While water is the natural enemy of some crystals like salt, water is required along with heat and a mineral called anhydride for the 55 toon crystals to grow. Mark Eberhart stated that after people, the pumps were to die out which no longer pumping water cause the mines to fill up again and one could get back to the similar mineral concentrations & the same temperatures that hold the them perfectly where it the continue to grow the crystals and become 30 meters large. It's almost 100 feet long and the crystal will soon be a sight like no other ever seen in the world.

2 Years After People

Off the island of Grenada, bizarre images of mankind stare out from the ocean floor into the endless sea. A concrete man sits at a sunken typewriter never pressing a key and a bicyclist never moves a muscle. What appears to be a traditional still life is anything but lifeless because the artist, Jason deCaires Taylor designed them so that their lives are only the beginning. Travis Taylor stated that the underwater sculpture gardens were designed to be habitats for future coral reeds and so they were made from materials that coral would likely stick to. In the time of humans, statues from ancient Greek and Roman civilizations were often discovered at the bottom of the ocean and the statues were marble, a mineral soft enough to sculpt but durable enough to survive centuries underwater and cleaning them off would sparkled like new. The artist chose to use concrete made of cement, sand, micro silica, and fiberglass because the elements provide a perfect bonding surface for the liquid limestone skeleton being excreted by the coral as it grows with millions of tiny sea creatures are slowly changing the once human shapes forever. Travis Taylor stated that there thousands of coral that attach over it and very rapidly within a few years, some of the statues are covered which is interesting to look at the underwater sculpture gardens already because it really are sort of living a life after people and in only a matter of a few years, a lot of the sculptures would begin to no longer resemble what they originally look like.

4 Years After People

Deep inside the Cheyenne Mountain Complex, the buildings that once housed NORAD headquarters still remain strong. It was there that 12 million lines of computer code written in 27 different programming languages that helped the military to determine if it was missiles or a flock of geese coming over the horizon. With the external threat of nuclear warfare eliminated, the attention falls upon an internal invader, water. The complex conceals a 4.5 million gallon reservoir which is built by the military to help stabilize the internal temperature. Steven S. Ross stated that water is for drinking and to cool the massive amounts of electrical equipment there that is waiting to be used in case of an attack against North America. After 4 years, the more than 1,300 springs which provide protection for the buildings are under assault with water from the reservoir leaks out as a lack of maintenance begins to take it's tool. If the springs fail, it could spell the end for some of America's most secure buildings. Travis Taylor stated that whatever happens to the granite will start happening to the structure and if there's a landslide, an earthquake, or some sort of motion to the main, the motion would get translated into the structure and would cause the structure to fail. The place designed to survive a nuclear blast is finding it's structural integrity to slowly dripping away.

5 Years After People

In the very heart of one of America's most eerie and beautiful national parks, drips a steady rain of antifreeze at Carlsbad Caverns, New Mexico, where naturally occurring sulfuric acids seeped into the limestone carving out some of the largest caves in North America. The caves drew 350,000 tourists a year in the time of humans who arrived by bus and by car. Paul Burger stated that they have three very parking lots right on top of the cave and if one have an older car sitting on the driveway, one will get little spots of oil, antifreeze, and other fluids on the pavement and multiply that 350,000 visitors a year. 750 feet of limestone separates the parking lot from the caverns below but even in the time of humans that runoff from cars found it's way through the cracks and scientists estimated that more than a billion gallons of contaminated water seeped into the caves every year. 5 years after people, the flow continues. Paul Burger stated if the parking lot was completely full, it would start seeing a very long-term steady of contaminants above the cave and if it end up with a lightning strike, it could end up setting it on fire and release all the melted plastic and chemical associated with that goes into the cave. He continues that it'd still be looking at decades before the vehicles are deteriorated enough to no longer supplying the contaminants into the underground and looking at 50 to 100 years before all the stuff sis flushed out of the rock above the cave. The influence of man will continue to be felt at Carlsbad Caverns for a very long time.

6 Years After People

Large numbers of deer gather on the site of The Geyser's geothermal field in Northern California. The deer were drawn by the heat radiating from the 80 miles of steam pipes left behind by man and although the massive cooling towers and power plants shutdown long ago, 40,000 pounds of steam per hour continues to fill the pipes. After 6 years, the deer are in for an unpleasant surprise. John Farison stated that overtime and with no one to maintain the pipeline, it'll start having corrosion leaks, steam vents, would grow bigger and louder like listening to a jet engine and would go on for about many years. The years of pressure build up finally come to a head in deep within the Earth's core, water hits magma and from that collision comes the crushing power of super heated steam. The corroding pipes can no longer handle the pressure and The Geysers explode.

40 Years After People

Rusting remnants of human civilization continue to decay underground but some places have escaped the depths of destruction ravaging the below-ground world. For decades, men pulled million of dollars worth of minerals out of the ground at the Bonne Terre Mine near St. Louis, Missouri.

Bonne Terre Mine

Visiting Bonne Terre Mine, 40 years after people seen the rusting remnants but have escaped the depths of destruction. Douglas Goergens and Mark Eberhart explores and explains the state of the mine. The mine excavate lead which was used in car batteries, house paint, and to make bullets, the ammunition that used from World War 1 through Vietnam War. Douglas Goergens stated that the miners began surface mining in 1880 with mining tools like diamond drill and steam-driven drill were originally developed at Bonne Terre Mine. In the 1960's, the Bonne Terre Mine was declared mined out and abandoned. When the mining pumps shut off, the natural ground water began to rise which create dual underground worlds. Douglas Goergens stated that when someone come in, they'll entered into another world and haven't come into a place that ones expected because it's much larger and one would've lost the senses. Huge pillars reach to a ceiling that's 300 feet above the mine floor but to reach the floor requires an oxygen tank because much of the Bonne Terre Mine is preserved underwater. Mark Eberhart that one of the things that fascinates him is how time has come to a halt because so much of the biological world is driven by oxygen which is the high octane fuel that decays and break down things but in the environment where water come and flooded it which pushed the oxygen out of the mine by basically the process still going but in slow motion.

Concealed in the depths of a billion gallon like is a mining town frozen in time. Douglas Goergens stated that its diving in a time capsule like Superman souring in the past and because one is diving in the mine, it's in crystal clear water and one of the very few places where one could get the feeling that the diver's soaring through the water. The staircase clattered with the boots of workers that headed down into the mines with hovels, jackhammers, and drills remain were it left on the day the mine shut down. Mark Eberhart explains a drill left right in the side of the mine, sticking out there and hanging by the bit and over the period of the next 10 to 40 years, it will begin to corrode more which finally pull it away from the wall, fall, and sit down on the bottom where it'll continue to rust away. Even the locomotive used to shuttle lead ore to the surface remains as a ghostly reminder of the decades of back-breaking labor carried out on the spot. Mark Eberhart explains that below them is one of the many tipples in the mine and the place where the ore car comes to a stop, dump it out, it's made out of some low-grade steel, and is serving as an energy source for whatever the biotic community is living on the iron with over a period of time, it'll use all the nutrients out of it which turn the iron into iron oxide, rust it, and would be gone. Douglas Goergens stated that all the things supported in the operation were built underground like the engineering offices against the back of the pillars, put doors and windows, and put air conditioners to control the humidity by basically having a basic office building built several hundred feet underground which is today over a hundred feet underwater. When it was time for a break, miners didn't head for the surface but instead stayed below where they visit a drinking fountain that's overflowing after it was flooded and a locker room once home to the chatter and clatter of miners hoping to survive for just one more day is deathly still. The episode questions why the mine is abandoned before answering to itself that everything was left behind in the name of progress. Douglas Goergens stated that there was no need to harvest any of the equipment like pickaxes and shovels because modern mines all have loaders and the last thing a miner wants to do is steal a shovel from a mine meaning he'll have to do more digging when he gets home. The Bonne Terre Mine is filled with examples of how different environmentalists can lead to vastly different decay rates. Mark Eberhart shows what the action in the fast lane's like and a railroad tie which is rotting, got a biotic community living it which turns into powder because it's feeding oxygen and using it as the oxidizer as opposed to the stuff underwater that hasn't got access to it and will be gone completely in a few more years whereas the stuff underwater still doesn't looks like it even been touched. In the modern day, the Bonne Terre Mine is used as a scuba resort and divers from all over the world come to witness firsthand the processes that will have a big impact after people. Mark Eberhart stated that there's small pieces of iron flaking off and the process is happening slowly than it would be happening out in the real world where big hunks of iron rust away and fall off but in the Bonne Terre Mine, it's just little flakes over a long time. The episode concludes the visit stating that man excavated the Bonne Terre Mine which is a punctured hole in the Earth and after people, it will remain as a watery time capsule.

50 Years After People

In the underground world, people may be gone but the impact is still being felt. In the time of humans, studies showed it would take at least 50 years for the last drops of oil and antifreeze to make it's way thought 750 feet of rock above Carlsbad Caverns and after 50 years, the cavern is beginning to return to it's natural state that is filled to the brim with bat droppings. Paul Burger stated that after people, the bat population would start to increase because of reducing the amount of stress on them making the bats go out, fly around primarily the Pecos River, eat tons of bugs, and bring all back into the cave and as they're hanging there, they're doing business and dropping guano down on the cave floors making the guano pile an extremely rich system of organics. The organic material proves to the fertile spawning ground for millions of insects that include Millipedes, centipedes, and cockroaches. Paul Burger stated that it would be a scene out of Indiana Jones and one want to keep the pant legs duct taped out so one don't end up with a creepy crawlies going up the legs because there's nothing more disconcerting than trying to scream with a respirator on and after people, they're going to fill up the usable space with guano and since there's no natural system that flushes the guano out, it'll get deeper until at one point, the guano pile at the bat cave section of Carlsbad Caverns would be more than 60 feet deep. As the creatures start to reclaim territory they've long avoided, Carlsbad Caverns is slowly becoming a giant guano-filled bat cave.

150 Years After People

Some items from the time of man remain perfectly preserved and in fact there's a place in Middle America where it's already happened, the steamboat Arabia.

Steamboat Arabia

In 1856, the steamboat Arabia was transporting settlers and cargo along the Missouri River to the western frontier but near Kansas City, the ship hit a partially submerged tree which ripping open its hull. The Arabia sank and all the passengers survived but the 200 tons of cargo went down with the ship. In the century after the sinking, rapid cycles of flooding and erosion changed the course of the Missouri River and was so great that the Arabia ended up buried a half mile from the banks which is entombed and forgotten beneath a farmer's field. In the late 1980's, treasure hunter David Hawley led a team of explorers to recover the Arabia and what they found was astonishing, a portal to a perfectly preserved slice of life circa 1856. David Hawley recalls that when they reached it in the fall of 1988, they found an uncovered barrel still filled and smelled like butter and barrels of molasses were still sweet, and explains that the Arabia were shipping jars and cases like pickles to the frontier and within the clear-glass jars, the pickles inside were brilliantly green that it is still edible along with pie fillings and even the iron where one could open up pocket knives and the locks could be unlock still after all the years in the water.

For the objects and countless others, there were 3 secrets to survival being no exposure to sunlight, a constant temperature, and lack of oxygen. David Hawley stated that because of the lack of air, there was no oxygen at 45 feet and while one take the same item and put it on the surface, it would rust away within a matter of years. While the water and mud preserved many items, others were destroyed by it. David Hawley stated that not every piece on the Arabia had survived because water was an enemy to some things like cotton which dissolved while wools did not because the former is a plant material while the latter along with silk and beaver hair survived the water which comes from an animal. For the objects that survive, the recovery effort was a race against time. David Hawley recalls that the Arabia was excavated in the winter from November to February where it took 4 months to dig and 200 tons were recovered in the short amount of time. He continues that some people questions why so quickly before answering that when someone open up the collection, it begins to decay very quickly and it's a ticking time bomb to get the stuff out of the ground, mud, and air into a stable environment. In order to stabilize some of the artifacts, Hawley and his team had to freeze them. David Hawley recalls they found a lot of rolling pins 1 day and brought them out and typically washed the mud & froze them but one rolling pin rolled off into the shadows and they didn't find it until 3 days later when they found it which turned a perfectly preserved rolling pin to be shrunk at half of its height, long cracks along its side, one handle had fallen off, and it's at the point where it cannot be restored. The episode ends the highlight by stating that while steamboat Arabia may not have reached its destination, 200 tons of history recovered from the depths provides a glimpse as what could await some of the artifacts in a life after people.

175 Years After People

In the heart of Hollywood, the Capitol Records Building has gone green but below ground, the famed echo chambers are a sonic time capsule. Steven S. Ross stated that in the entire city of Los Angeles, one of the things they can say that the echo chambers would be among the longest lived objects left by humankind and would be there for 5,000 years to 10,000 years. To ensure a consistent sound which could be easily manipulated, the chambers were constructed from concrete and unlike most modern concrete structures, the echo chambers were built without reinforcing rods. Steven S. Ross stated that like the Ancient Romans who built without reinforcing rods, the echo chamber's concrete would be pure concrete. After 175 years, the Capitol Records Building collapse but even after the building above collapse and with no iron skeleton to rust and destroy the concrete from within, the sonic temple may stand for a very long time.

500 Years After People

The Texas countryside is pulsates with prairie dogs. With their number one predator being no man no longer a factor, the prairie dogs has made a comeback and returns to a population levels not seen since the late 18th century. John Hoogland stated that there is one colony in Texas being extended in one direction, 250 miles and the single colony that biologists estimate contained 400 million prairie dogs making it a lot of bowsers. The sounds of prairie dogs barking, the yips and yaps of breeding, and territorial fights shatter the quiet of the Texas air but an old sound has returned, the barks of dire warning, because a new predator has emerged. The prairie dogs population explosion has been good news for what was once one of the rarest mammals in North America, the black-footed ferret. The black-footed ferret feeds primarily on prairie dogs by 100 a year to feed an adult male and 250 a year to feed a family of 4. In the time of humans, the cousin of the weasel was on the endangered species list and after people, the ferret will be the first in line at an all-you-can-eat prairie dog buffet.

1,000 Years After People

It used to be sculptures and after 1000 years, it is not. Completely covered in undersea growth, the underwater statues of Molinere Underwater Sculpture Park are indistinguishable from a vibrant and colorful coral reef as fish and other marine creatures dart in around their new reef. Most of the evidence for the home originated as a piece of art is lost forever just as the artist intended.

2,000 Years After People

The military buildings that once housed NORAD's command center at Cheyenne Mountain are still standing. Steven S. Ross stated that the building structure would have corroded quite a bit, the framework of the desks and the flat-panel computer screens would be covered in powder, and rust from the structure but will still be recognizable which turns it an enduring tomb for human technology and for human ingenuity. Built to withstand a nuclear blast, the Cheyenne Mountain Complex survives even if its entombed forever.

Epilogue

Works of art come to life, animals running wild, and explosive forces from the deep shatters the calm of the above-ground world. In a life after people, its only a matter of time before the underground world reaches the new depths of destruction.

Transcript

Life After People Wiki has a transcript for this episode. To see it, click here.

Errors

• The Cheyenne Mountain Complex still house some parts of NORAD, especially in 2008 when it was designated 'NORAD and USNORTHCOM Alternate Command Center'
• Despite being 175 years after people, a billboard sign can still be seen clear without decay and the roads of Los Angeles wasn't consumed entirely.

Trivia

• It is the 2nd episode where the episode highlights the side exploration being Steamboat Arabia.
• It is also the 2nd episode where the producer is uncredited and the 4th overall.

Gallery

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