The story of our world

Earth is an incredible, exceptional planet with an amazing life story full of cataclysmic disasters, eleventh-hour coincidences that save it from extinction, and an astonishing power to continually regenerate. This landmark series uses breathtaking footage and specialist imaging to tell the story of the great forces that shape tha planet - volcanoes, the ocean, the atmosphere and ice.

Travelling from Ethiopia's unique lava lake to an ice cave under a glacier in Greenland and a host of amazing locations in between, we examine the forces that have helped create and foster life on Earth - from the volcanic eruptions that shape the land to the development of the unique formula of the air that we breathe.

We discover how these forces have not always been benevolent: the ocean belched poisonous gas into the atmosphere; encased in ice, the earth nearly froze to death; and a great meteorite strike helped to drive the dinosaurs to extinction. Yet, through each disaster the planet, aided by lucky breaks, has steered its own recovery and sustained life. Can it continue this astonishing fight for survival or is man contributing to the Earth's inevitable destruction?