Unveiling Earth’s Geological Tales: BBC iPlayer Documentary Series

In this article I share some info about a new five part series on the history of the Earth available to watch on BBC iPlayer.

Earth presented by Chris Packham is a new documentary series on BBC iPlayer from BBC Studios and the Open University. The documentary series is made up of five episodes just under an hour long, covering the following topics: Inferno (The End Permian Mass Extinction), Snowball Earth, Green (Plant life), Atmosphere and Human.

You can check out the official trailer for Earth below.

As someone who is fascinated by the geological, meteorological, and fluvial processes that the Earth has been through over its 4.5-billion-year history, I just had to check this new series out! I have only watched the first two episodes so far and really enjoyed them both.

Episode 1, *Inferno* focuses on the End Permian Mass Extinction, 251 million years ago. Image credit: BBC iPlayer, 2023.

The documentary series displays geology in action and does a fantastic job of visualising the powerful processes that the Earth has undergone throughout prehistory. It visualises geological time with a timer, enabling the audience to go on a geological journey and be able to grasp the distinct phases of life the Earth has been through, through millions of years. Each episode puts geological time into perspective displaying how our planet has dealt with traumatic events, recovered, and enabled life to flourish.

Episode 2, *Snowball* covers Snowball Earth and the tectonic processes that led to it. Image credit: BBC iPlayer, 2023.

Chris Packham does a fantastic job sharing scientific and geological information walking the audience through the different life events that have shaped the world we call our home.

Episode 3, *Green* examines how the Earth turned into a green world from desolate rock. Image credit: BBC iPlayer, 2023.

Making important science communication like this easy to understand in documentary form is key and from what I have seen so far, it does an excellent job in making geological processes and prehistory understandable.

Episode 4, *Atmosphere* covers the Earth’s atmosphere and extraordinary upheaval. Image credit: BBC iPlayer, 2023.

I highly recommend checking out the series when you have the opportunity. If you love prehistory and enjoy finding out more about the events our planet has gone through, this documentary is certainly for you. Overall, I am looking forward to watching the rest of the series and seeing what the remaining episodes will bring.

Episode 5, *Human* covers how humans went from being part of nature to controlling it. Image credit. BBC iPlayer, 2023.

I hope you have found this blog post interesting. I am still working on the third dinosaur fact file for the website which should be published soon. If you are new to the website, do explore everything it has to offer. You can find all of my relevant science communication links at the scicomm links page.