An award-winning natural history of the Wild West
Narrated by Barry Paine 3: The Price of Gold
Gold, oil, fertile soil, sun, spectacular scenery. Few places on earth are as lavishly endowed with natural riches as the State of California.
For the Indians of the North West there was bountiful food and shelter. For the forty-niners the gold was worth 81 million dollars a year. But every time the Pacific 'plate' of the earth's crust jerks past the continent there is an earthquake. This is the price Californians pay for their gold. This episode shows both the causes and the probable site of the next great earthquake on the San Andreas fault.
Film cameraman MIKE HERD
Written and produced by MICHAEL ANDREWS BBC Bristol