"Mystery of the Megaflood: Examining the World's Most Catastrophic Flood" (2005)

Our personal favorite documentary of all time, playing it on loop every now and then since watching and recording a live presentation of this since 2007.

You're reading a DVD review featuring one of our personal favorite documentaries from NOVA—all-time favorites, in fact. Having recorded a copy of this of our own back in 2007, airing on KLCS, then purchasing the official release some years later, we couldn't be more proud and satisfied with the presentation and story-telling. If anything, we're writing this review straight from our hearts.







Okay, yeah a megaflood and its mysteries surrounding what caused it and why. This flood took place in the Scablands located east from Seattle, Washington, along with the state's next-door neighbors, Idaho and Missoula, Montana. Having to survey and research about a possible flood occurring around such areas was, similar to the tectonic plate theory, very controversial, with geology experts hearing hypothetical findings from J. Harlen Bretz who concluded that a megaflood took place explaining the features it formed proven by its rocks and sediments, landscapes, valleys, canyons and its erosions on the floors. When this was pitched, the idea and findings sounded too Biblical and took many years to become accepted, but this film explains everything about it from the science, the elements which were the culprits that caused it along with hearing from the experts themselves.

What we love about this documentary is the presentation itself. From the edits, the graphics, the aerial shots, the audio quality and consistency throughout was meticulous and good. Granted, being that this was deciphering something mysterious, it sort of feels like a "murder mystery" presentation, but instead of finding the criminal(s) responsible, it was finding the culprit(s) in how the flood was caused, why was it a flood and the events that triggered it. We won't spoil it, though you can watch this or read about it, surely, but nevertheless, we have no critiques about the entire movie. We have no complaints whatsoever.

Let's take the time to glance at these beautiful screenshots featured on the film itself:







Absolutely fantastic. However, our favorite part was the graphical portrayal of water carrying a massive boulder then transitioned to the real-life shot of that very rock shown here in the same position:






This DVD also runs as a DVD-ROM and has some accessible materials. That material is a digital document (.pdf file) which is a guide for teachers and professors showing this movie as a supplement to their students. How cool is that? The presentation of this film certainly has a classroom feel, and given that many students would gradually fall asleep while watching this, I, myself, am likely being the only one to stay attentive and awake watching this from start to end. Sounds like bragging, but in all honesty, I watched this so many times, I would play this on repeat in the background; That's how much I love this film (despite the high electricity bills here in California). Even back when I recorded my own copy off TV, I would still play this on repeat because, again, I and we here at KCU Network found it enjoyable and learned a lot.

Here are the amazing people and experts interviewed and featured on this presentation, adding to facts, findings and everything else that narrator Richard Donat didn't mention:









Okay, one critique: We were never shown the name of the man telling us about the reenactment of the flooding—image shown above this sentence— done at the University of Minnesota as there was no 'lower third' graphic shown at the bottom. He along with his colleagues built their own "miniature Scablands" and ran water acting as the megaflood to prove the erosions and features it left behind.




Speaking of reenactments, this film also did a great job of acting out Mr. Bretz pitching his hypothesis during his meeting with geology experts which originally took place in January 12, 1927 at Washington DC. We cannot imagine the mental "stings" Bretz felt when his findings were rejected, only to find that years later, it was finally accepted. Better late than never, right?



Here it is: Our personal copy that we recorded back in 2007, recorded on a Panasonic DVD recorder back then. Because we watched this film on loop, we've worn out our DVD player quite well, yet this DVD of ours still works. Nevertheless, having the actual DVD yielded a much better picture and sound quality than our recorded copy as we much recommend purchasing the official release (plus to help support the entities involved in these projects and the series itself).

This DVD was made and compressed using the MPEG-2 format using a Native D3D9 DXVA VLD decoder with a frame rate of 30p (29.97p). The audio was output using the ac3 codec with a sample rate at 48000 and a bit depth of 16 bits. The format of this movie is 4:3 letterboxed.

We can proudly say that this very film is THE main reason for taking interest in Geology/Geophysics and partially in Hydrology/Hydrodynamics. Now, because Astronomy happens to be the more popular natural science, due to the fame that Albert Einstein and Isaac Newton had during their times, it's a humble feeling knowing that even though some famous geologists and experts may not have had the same level of recognition as, say, Erwin Schrödinger and his famous equations and thought experiment in Quantum Mechanics, it's great that they still get respected and honored for their hard work.

What more can we say? If PBS hosted their own awards show based on, and only on, public broadcasts, we would happily nominate this one. Even today, we still enjoy it and watch this film every now and then, like a good song.

BIG thank you to NOVA and the entire crew for producting this movie! It is this film that made us excited and curious about Geology! Documentaries like this do inspire, as it did with us. Thank you so much! Strongly recommended!

Kris Caballero

Founder of KCU Network and KCU Plus, Kris has been writing since he managed a personal blog made back in late 2005. Officially back to doing computer programming (software development) and video production, Kris enjoys reading books on Mathematics, Quantum Computing, Philosophy, playing old video/DOS games, digital video archiving, and listening to sports, public radio and classical music.

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