All language subtitles for BBC - Europe A Natural History - 1 - Genesis

Europe, an ancient continent.

Within its borders lies an unrivaled
richness of both natural and human

At its northern limits, Europe reaches
into the icy waste of the high Arctic.

To the south and west, its fringes have
been shaped by the Mediterranean Sea and

Atlantic Ocean.

Far to the east, It is bounded by the
primeval forests of Russia, rubbing

shoulders with Asia.

These boundaries enclose an area just
half the size of North America.

Yet 730 million people make Europe their
home.

It's hard to find a space unmarked by
human occupation.

The Europe that we see today is the
product of a long and complex history.

Thousands of years of settlement,
invasions, revolutions and inventions

allowed us to reorder nature's ancient
patterns to suit our needs.

On a human timescale, the story of the
changing face of Europe seems immense.

But there's an even more extraordinary
story to be told, one that stretches

half a billion years and tells of the
events that have really shaped the

continent.

8 ,000 years ago, the skyscrapers of
Frankfurt would have risen over endless

primeval wildwood, stretching from
Lisbon to Leningrad.

Over the last two million years, Europe
has seesawed between perishing cold

and stifling heat.

During the Ice Ages, Amsterdam and
London would have been smothered by huge

glaciers.

And at other times, they'd have looked
more like Africa's Serengeti Plains.

More than 50 million years ago, what is
now Vienna and Paris?

would have been submerged beneath rich
tropical seas.

And over 100 million years ago, Florence
and Oxford would have looked more like

Jurassic Park.

Go back over 200 million years, and
Europe rivaled the Sahara.

And 300 million years ago, the world's
first forests covered the continent.

Berlin would have been part of a
tropical rainforest.

Edinburgh sits astride ancient volcanoes
which shook the Earth nearly half a

billion years ago.

All these great events helped to lay the
foundations for the extraordinary

continent we now call Europe.

The northern fringes of Europe are its
wildest country.

Scandinavia, a land dominated by the
elements.

In summer, it's bathed in the glow of
midnight sun.

And in winter, by the ghostly shadows.

of the Northern Lights.

In this coastal labyrinth of fjords and
islands, Europe's most ancient history

lies hidden.

Norway's Lofoten Islands, seemingly
lifeless,

but they're surrounded by the richest of
sea.

Here, Atlantic storms pound some of the
most ancient rocks in the world.

They're nearly 3 billion years old.

These granites formed long before the
European continent even existed.

Here in Norway.

There are also clues to Europe's birth.

These fjords and mountains are part of
an ancient range, the Caledonites,

stretching from Ireland to Scotland and
up through Norway.

Mountains that today help define the
continent's western edge.

In the east, another ancient range, the
Urals, separates Europe from Asia.

Both these ranges are evidence of
Europe's earliest formation.

The result of processes that began half
a billion years ago.

Back then, Europe was still in pieces.

Scandinavia was in the southern oceans.

England and the Low Countries were near
the Antarctic Circle.

And most of the rest sat near the South
Pole.

All of these isolated fragments of crust
were on the move.

Continental plates are dragged along by
powerful flows of molten rock deep in

the Earth's mantle, some 80 kilometers
underground.

They only move a few centimeters every
year.

But over millions of years, these
centimeters add up.

Like a giant jigsaw puzzle, Europe was
gradually assembled, piece by piece.

Each impact created enormous crumple
zones.

Rock was bent and buckled, as if caught
between the jaws of a vice, and forced

up into great mountain chains along the
joy.

They created Europe's backbone, which in
scale once rivaled the Himalayas.

The formation of these ancient mountains
was the first act of European Union.

Since then, Europe has travelled halfway
across the globe.

300 million years ago, it was straddling
the equator.

In this warm, wet climate, the foothills
of Europe's oldest mountain ranges

now became the cradle of the world's
first forests.

Paris would have been smothered in lush,
tropical rainforest, which stretched

east across the entire continent.

This was no ordinary forest.

What looked like trees were in fact
giant ferns, horsetails and club mosses.

The fossils of which have been
exquisitely preserved in this Scottish

They offer a glimpse of the botanic
wonders that once filled Europe's

forests.

These club mosses grew a massive 30
meters tall.

Long before birds appeared on the planet
these carboniferous forests would have

echoed to a very different dawn chorus.

Predatory dragonflies were common, and
some were absolutely huge.

This one, Meganeura, was the size of a
hawk, with a wingspan of over 60

centimetres.

The forest floor was a bug's world too.

Fossil footprints of a millipede show
that it was nearly two metres long.

Over 800 species of cockroach scurried
through the ancient undergrowth, and

these were preyed on by other giants,
like scorpions.

Some were over 70 centimetres long, with
a sting to match.

These swampy forests were also roamed by
the very first land vertebrates,

amphibians.

The Carboniferous Era was to play a
pivotal role in European history.

Its 300 million year old legacy would
eventually revolutionize the modern

This was a time of great tectonic
activity.

As the land repeatedly subsided, seas
flooded over these great coastal

Ravaged by monsoon storms,

Fallen trees became buried by layers of
sand, then mud.

Over millions of years, the build -up of
sediment compressed this vegetation

into this.

Coal.

It took a 10 -meter layer of fallen
rainforest to make just a 1 -meter seam

coal.

When you consider the depth of all the
seams in all the coal fields worked in

Europe,

From Britain through to northern France
and Germany, Poland and Ukraine, the

immense scale of carboniferous forests
becomes clear.

Coal fueled one of the greatest
transformations that Europe has ever

Its presence all across the continent
was a vital component in making Europe

cradle of the Industrial Revolution and
ultimately turned it into the economic

powerhouse it is today.

The ancient past can directly shape the
present.

Europe. is now the most urbanized and
industrialized continent on the globe,

largely thanks to its position on the
equator 300 million years ago.

When these steaming forests were at
their peak, other events were already in

motion that would banish them forever.

Europe, still drifting north, had been
rocked by another series of monumental

collisions. And the result of the
tectonic pile -up was this.

The supercontinent Pangea.

Around 230 million years ago, Europe was
engulfed by a massive land.

Now, far from the ocean, rain no longer
fell.

Under an unforgiving sun, the lush
tropical forests disappeared, and the

continent was swallowed by sand.

The fossilized remains of these desert
dunes now form much of the bedrock of

Eastern Europe.

In the depths of a Russian winter, it's
hard to imagine how hot and dry this

place once was.

Let alone some of the creatures that
roamed here.

Dinosaurs.

A new order on the move.

Parts of Pangaea were periodically
flooded by shallow seas.

But time and again this water
evaporated, leaving layer upon layer of

Today these massive deposits lie buried
deep beneath the Netherlands, Poland,

Northern England and the Austrian Alps.

They've been mined for millennia.

Salt is a major ingredient for the
chemical industry.

It's also used, albeit controversially,
to de -ice Europe's roads in winter.

Thousands of tons a day.

This particular mine, in Krakow, in
Poland, is made up of over 300

of tunnels.

It's so vast that miners have carved an
entire underground cathedral out of the

salt.

Even the chandeliers.

After tens of millions of years of
baking under the desert sun, Europe

once again.

This is the Jura in eastern France.

The slopes here are blessed with
fertile, well -drained soils, perfect

vineyards.

And scattered among the vines are clues
to the next waves of change that began

to sweep Europe.

some 200 million years ago.

A fossil ammonite, a marine creature,
and mussels, even

the ancient relatives of squid.

This area was once under the sea.

These waters teemed with life.

As well as ammonites, marine reptiles
called ichthyosaurs were common.

They fed on fish, breathed air, and gave
birth to live young.

They were the dolphins of their time.

All these creatures swam where there are
now thousands of vines.

And it's this region of France that has
lent its name to one of the most

familiar periods in the Earth's history.

The Jurassic.

What had once been covered in dense
forests, then by desert sands, had now

become a paradise of tropical seas and
coral reefs.

But what was the catalyst for such
dramatic change?

The answer, once again, lies with the
ever -shifting continents.

Just as they can collide, they can also
split apart.

And when this happened to Pangaea, water
flooded into the gaps, creating new

coastlines and oceans.

The newly liberated Europe still lay in
the subtropics, and the seas surrounding

it were warm, shallow, and clear, ideal
for corals.

Fossilized reefs show these seas flooded
all across Europe and remained there

for 70 million years.

In these warm waters, more of Europe's
foundations were laid down.

Corals. Shells and lime -rich mud were
slowly deposited onto the sea floor.

Millions of years of deposition and
compression resulted in this.

Limestone.

Limestone grew in the sea, but was
shaped by rain.

Rainwater dissolves limestone, drip by
drip, grain by grain.

A very simple chemical reaction has
sculpted some of Europe's most

scenery.

And limestone is also perfectly suited
to be carved.

by the hand of man.

This rock and its derivatives, like
marble, provide wonderful building

The legacy of the Jurassic seas are some
of Europe's most stunning and

celebrated man -made and natural
monuments.

The dreaming spires of Oxford are built
almost entirely from Jurassic limestone.

Local masons often ice this
architectural cake with flights of

to gargoyles.

And when this rock was quarried, It also
revealed traces of real monsters, the

bones of huge dinosaurs.

170 million years ago, Oxford was a real
-life Jurassic Park.

Dinosaur fossils have been found
throughout Europe.

In Rioja, in Spain, the traces they've
left are not only the bones.

Hundreds of dinosaur tracks have been
discovered in this mountainous region,

some revealing an ancient struggle
between predator and predator.

A deadly drama from the age of the
dinosaurs, frozen forever in a layer of

As reptiles conquered the skies above
ancient Europe, dramatic changes were

affecting the western shores.

Pangaea continued to disintegrate.

Europe was tearing itself away from what
is now North America.

This separation gave birth to one of the
world's great oceans, the Atlantic.

As this ocean grew,

Pterosaurs were not the only creatures
exploring the air.

And the most famous evidence for that is
found here in Solnholfen in Bavaria.

This tiny community is famous for the
unique qualities of the local rock.

The limestone quarried here is extremely
fine -grained.

and can be worked into thin and very
light flabs.

They make perfect roof tiles.

But these tiles occasionally reveal
something extraordinary.

Perfect snapshots from 150 million years
ago.

Back then, Solnhofen was part of a very
still and salty tropical lagoon.

No scavengers could survive in these
toxic waters, and anything that died was

left undisturbed.

One casualty in particular has made
Solnhofen world famous.

Archaeopteryx.

Although it had the head and pelvis of a
reptile, the long forelimbs suggest

something altogether different.

They're covered in feathers.

This was part reptile, part bird.

Archaeopteryx marks one of the major
turning points in evolutionary history.

From these beginnings emerged the 9 ,000
species of birds that fill the skies

today.

The next great event that Europe
experienced took place 100 million years

The clues lie hidden in the famous chalk
cliffs of southern England.

Chalk is composed of the shells and
skeletons of ancient marine plankton,

microscopic creatures, trillions, and
trillions of them.

As they died, they slowly sank, settling
in layers on the sea floor.

Through time, they formed these cliffs,
in an ocean that was up to 300 metres

deeper than we see it today.

Just imagine how London might have
looked back then.

All this flooding was triggered by
rising sea floors and a warming climate,

causing the ice caps to melt.

A cataclysm that resulted in much of the
continent disappearing.

But it wasn't these rising seas that
spelled the end for the dinosaurs.

It was an event that happened 30 million
years later, and half a world away.

A giant meteorite.

crashed into the Gulf of Mexico.

The destructive power equaled 5 billion
Hiroshima bombs.

Shockwaves swept across the Atlantic.

All across Europe, life struggled to
hold on.

The extinction of the dinosaurs created
opportunities for new forms of life.

Evidence of which can be found here on
the Baltic coast of Poland.

These fishermen are after a catch that
could change their lives.

They're not after fish or crabs, but
something far more precious, washed up

the seabed.

One lucky dip could net a small fortune.

and open a window back more than 50
million years into Europe's past.

This is amber.

It doesn't look much until it's
polished.

Then it can reveal all kinds of
treasures.

It's the fossilized resin of ancient
pine trees.

And trapped within it are perfectly
preserved souvenirs.

Each fragment helping to build a picture
of an ancient world.

This resin has also trapped something
that marks a great turning point in

evolution.

Hair.

Its presence indicates the rise of a new
dynasty in Europe.

The mammals.

These subtropical forests were home to a
huge variety of these creatures, from

kangaroo -like carnivores and tapirs to
anteaters and even miniature horses.

Fifty million years ago, the mammals
were evolving at an astonishing rate.

From just one site at Messel in Germany,
dozens of different species of fossil

mammal have been unearthed.

Today, their more recognizable
descendants occupy virtually every niche

across Europe.

As Europe's new fauna took center stage,
the continent itself was undergoing

another decisive step towards
completion.

Signs of this can be found here on the
western fringe of the continent, along

the remote cliffs of Ireland and
northwest Scotland.

These spectacular coasts are built of
compacted volcanic ash and lava.

They are visible remains of ancient
eruptions that cover thousands of square

kilometers and mark the growing pains of
a

young ocean.

Sixty million years ago, North America
and Greenland finally split apart from

Europe.

As the continental plates separated, the
North Atlantic was born.

It's a process that's far from over. Now
5 ,000 kilometers wide, this ocean

is still expanding at the speed our
fingernails grow.

This is happening all along the mid
-Atlantic ridge.

Occasionally, eruptions here are
immense.

Volcanoes rise up from the abyss.

Iceland is just the tip of one such
volcano.

Its violent volcanic history

is written all across the island.

New eruptions happen all the time adding
new territory to this isolated European

outpost These are some of Europe's
youngest rocks

The events here in Iceland reflect the
violent processes that have helped build

Europe over the last 500 million years

Despite their violence and
unpredictability

volcanic foundations do have advantages.

The Icelanders put all these hot rocks
to good use.

A borehole sunk deep into the ground
taps into all this heat and uses it to

power much of the island.

And a by -product of this natural
central heating is this, the Blue

the biggest hot tub In the world.

As the North Atlantic grew, Europe's
northwest coast was taking shape.

But in the south, the continent was
still missing some key ingredients.

Sixty million years ago, the Alps didn't
exist, and the Mediterranean coastline

looked very different.

One last great push was needed to mould
the continent, and it came from a

neighbour to the south, Africa.

The African plate has been drifting
north over millions of years, and where

pushes against the European plate, huge
folds of rock have been forced up and

over one another into great mountain
ranges.

Europe's southern mountains, the
Pyrenees, Carpathians and the Alps,

all rose from this collision.

Pieces of primeval ocean floor have been
lifted thousands of meters up into the

sky.

The Alps are still rising.

as Africa continues to push north.

The volcanoes of southern Europe are
vivid reminders of the great tectonic

forces.

lurking beneath our feet.

Vesuvius in southern Italy is a sleeping
giant.

Nearly 2 ,000 years ago, a huge eruption
buried Pompeii.

Today, the city of Naples lies sprawled
across its lower slopes.

Who knows when another nudge from Africa
will set it off again?

It isn't just Europe's southern
mountains that owe their existence to

advancing African plate.

So too does the Mediterranean Sea.

This sea is one of the defining
boundaries of the continent.

With its spectacular coastline and clear
blue waters, it's one of Europe's great

natural treasures.

Much of the Mediterranean's
extraordinary history hinges on the

its western end.

At the Rock of Gibraltar, only 14
kilometres now separate Europe from

About six million years ago, The
northward push of Africa, combined with

in sea level, created a vast dam,
cutting off the Mediterranean from the

Atlantic.

As the sun beat down, something like 4
,000 cubic kilometres of water

evaporated from the Mediterranean
surface every year, and with no Atlantic

to replenish it, the Mediterranean.

dried out.

In just a thousand years it became a
desert basin of salt pans and caustic

lakes.

The rivers that once fed the
Mediterranean cut deeper and deeper into

chasing the dropping shoreline and
forming a labyrinth of dramatic gorges.

Just a few million years ago, France's
Rhone Valley must have looked more like

the Grand Canyon.

So intense was the heat in the basin.

that these waterfalls evaporated before
they even reached the old sea floor.

For tens of thousands of years, a
natural dam between present -day Morocco

the Rock of Gibraltar held the waters of
the Atlantic at bay.

The Mediterranean basin remained an
almost lifeless expanse of silt, sand

parched earth.

But as Africa pushed and pulled at
Europe's southern boundary, the

the crust became unbearable.

Rising tides weakened the land bridge,
and then the Atlantic versed its way

the precipice.

So began the most gigantic flood ever.

At its peak, enormous waterfalls a
thousand times grander than Niagara

into the basin.

More than 100 cubic kilometers of water
gushed past Gibraltar every day.

Despite this enormous flood, the
Mediterranean took more than a century

refill.

But what is more amazing is that this
process of drying and flooding has

happened not just once, but possibly ten
times.

With this flooding, five and a half
million years ago, Europe's southern

had now taken shape.

The final act in the genesis of the
continent.

A chain of incredible events has shaped
Europe during its long and dynamic

history.

It's the history that's written across
the face of this unique continent.

A story that began billions of years
ago, south of the equator, and which

an incredible journey across the face of
the globe.

The diversity of Europe's landscapes
today reflects the changing conditions

encountered along the way.

Each has left a unique fingerprint.

on this small but incredibly complex
continent.

For eons, the birth of Europe had been
driven by geological events.

But now a new and different force was
destined to shape the land.

Two million years ago, Europe's climate
spiraled out of control.

Temperatures plummeted.

Consumed by glaciers, the continent
would now be plunged into one of the

extreme eras in its history.

The great ice ages were on their way.

Stay with BBC4 tonight for the other
three episodes of Europe and Natural

History with a look at the Great Ice
Ages next.