The Great Lakes region provided geologists with much of the evidence for the frequent ice ages that visited North America. But the lakes may be a rather transient feature of the continent dependent upon the recurring ice ages to maintain their existence.
The discovery of the San Andreas Fault and efforts to understand it are described.
2009 • Environment
The discovery of the Marianas trench was one of the first puzzle pieces that lead to the understanding of the most massive process that shapes the geology of the Earth; plate tectonics and the creation of new crust in the mid-ocean ridges and its subduction under the continents.
2009 • Environment
The unique geological conditions that make Krakatoa and its successor, Anak Krakatau, extraordinarily explosive and, despite its remoteness, dangerous are explained.
2009 • Environment
Scotland is a ground zero for some of the most significant geologic cataclysms in Earth's history. Understanding of these titanic shifts was prompted by a mysterious lake known as Loch Ness.
2009 • Environment
The geological history of New York City is as superlative as it's current economic impact including; a titanic mountain rage, massive volcanic eruptions, immense glaciers and an enormous flash flood.
2009 • Environment
Chile's Atacama Desert is the driest, oldest and deadest desert on earth. Yet it's plays host to living creatures and penguins even thrive nearby. It may provide clues to where to look for life on other, seemingly barren, planets.
2009 • Environment
The Great Lakes region provided geologists with much of the evidence for the frequent ice ages that visited North America. But the lakes may be a rather transient feature of the continent dependent upon the recurring ice ages to maintain their existence.
2009 • Environment
The evidence, structure, history and potential threat of the Yellowstone super volcano are described.
2009 • Environment
A tsunami is a dramatic indicator of geological activity magnifying the impact into extensive coastal destruction. Scientists searching for evidence of past tsunamis to predict when they are likely to recur and how severe they are likely to be uncover a new phenomenon, the mega-tsunami.
2009 • Environment
The Hawaiian Islands are a study in contradictions. The fastest growing islands on earth are also the fastest disappearing. Made of one of the hardest minerals, it crumbles at a touch. The world's most active volcano is nowhere near the typical volcanic regions. Geologists strive to understand these mysteries.
2009 • Environment
The Alps are known as the majestic mountain range of Europe. But their formation from a collision between Europe and Africa left an unstable structure that is now a classic study in erosion by rivers of water, ice and rock suggesting an even greater former glory. Left unexplained is why the Mediterranean Sea exists between the continents.
2009 • Environment
This special report looks at the domino effect of environmental and atmospheric factors that drive the globe to wetter, hotter, drier and colder extremes.
7/10 • Catalyst: Season 1 • 2015 • Environment
Why are bees, worldwide, facing extinction? With the tenacity of a man out to solve a world-class mystery, Markus Imhoof investigates this global phenomenon, from California to Switzerland, China, and Australia.
2014 • Environment
The picturesque Lake Constance region is characterized by intensive agriculture - with dramatic results for the bird life. Since 2003, the ornithologist Professor Peter Berthold has been creating new habitats for birds - alongside cultivated landscapes.
5/5 • Paradise Preserved • 2019 • Environment
Over three decades after the world's most devastating nuclear accident, Ben Fogle spends a week living alone inside the Chernobyl exclusion zone. Throughout the expedition, Ben ventures inside the ruins of a nearby hospital, explores the deserted radioactive remains of the ghost town of Pripyat, and goes deep inside the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.
2021 • Environment
In 1998, wildlife enthusiast and photographer Chris Packham had a remarkable encounter with the Orang Rimba, a tribe of hunter gatherers in the rainforests of Sumatra, Indonesia. It was the first time he had ever seen people living in perfect harmony with their environment. One photograph in particular that Chris took, a picture of a young tribal girl, has since become immensely important to him as a barometer of how we are treating our planet. In this real-life detective story, with no clues as to her identity or whereabouts other than his original photograph, Chris sets off to Sumatra 20 years on to try to find her; the girl in the picture. Chris's search is further complicated because her tribe is nomadic and often cover vast distances on foot, and since he was last there, millions of hectares of her rainforest habitat has been destroyed. Piecing together the clues, Chris discovers to his horror that the girl's close-knit group of Orang Rimba was attacked not long after he met them, and a number of them killed. But was the girl among them? Chris travels into the heart of Sumatra and tries to discover the girl's fate by meeting the men who pulled the murdered tribespeople's bodies out of the river. On his way, he discovers just how much of Sumatra's once pristine rainforests have been replaced by palm oil plantations, palm oil which is in around 50% of the products we buy in our supermarkets. Chris learns some uncomfortable truths about how we are all in some way connected to deforestation.
2018 • Environment
Pete Postlethwaite as a man living alone in the devastated world of 2055, watching archive footage from 2008 and asking why climate change wasn't stopped before it was too late.
Storyville • 2009 • Environment