"The Earth is indeed an extraordinary planet and not just because of the almost infinite variety of life that it supports" "It's very fabric the land itself is marvelously varied and impressive" "In this program, we're going on a global journey in search of the greatest natural wonders in the world" "Long ago the surface of the earth was born a fire" "This was the raw material from which the face of our planet was created" "Then over an immense length of time the earth's crust was shaped and reshaped by the forces of nature" "Its rocks have been carved by the powers of the elements and by that great leveler - time itself" "What we see around us today is the result of these unrelenting processes of natural erosion a dramatic story of continuous change" "The world we see now is the result of monumental changes that are barely detectable in our own brief lives" "In our journey around the world we will visit many natural wonders" "Some very famous, others less familiar" "We start in north America a land of countless wonders both old and new" "From the Everglades of Florida in the East to the great forests of mountains of the West this continent has many rich and varied landscapes" "But it's the southwestern part of the United States that is perhaps most distinctively American" "Here are the deserts and canyonlands of the wild west" "Justly famous for so many of the country's most extraordinary natural wonders" "This is one of the hottest spots on earth" "It's also one of the lowest and the driest" "Death Valley fully deserves its awesome reputation as one of the most forbidding places on the planet but it's also a place of startling beauty" "Back during the gold rush of 1849 the American pioneers who traveled over land west towards California in search of wealth and the new life were met by this unforgiving desert" "They gave its shimmering landmarks very telling names starvation canyon dead man's pass funeral mountains coffin peak hell's gate" "But in fact only one 49er is known to have died crossing Death Valley" "And today thousands of visitors from all over the world come here to marvel at its extraordinary landscape" "Death Valley is now one of the United States' many national parks" "The concept that the Americans were the first to devise and put into practice" "The very first was Yellowstone famous for its spectacular geological attractions" "Old Faithfall, its most popular feature erupts every 80 minutes or so 170 feet into the air" "Thousands of gallons of water are superheated under pressure by the geothermal forces that are still shaping this part of the Rocky Mountains" "Here in Yellowstone there're more geysers, hot springs and fumeroles than in the rest of the world put together" "Winter on this high plateau is especially dramatic" "The steam condensing in the subzero air and the basins bubbling like witch's caldrons" "This is the morning glory pool" "When summer comes the intense sunlight encourages the growth of colorful algae that astonishingly are able to tolerate the almost boiling water that rises in these springs" "The vivid blue comes from minerals dissolved under pressure in its crystal clear water" "Long before white man set eyes on this bizarre landscape the Crow Indians of the Yellowstone plateau called it the land of vapores and a sacred place of powerful water" "As the hot water cools it creates fantastic sculptures of crystalline limestone" "The red and yellow staining of the new white rock comes from the sulfur in the spring water giving the name Yellowstone to this curiously beautiful place" "Yellowstone lies right on the continental divide the watershed of North America" "Its rivers flow either the east to the Atlantic or west to the Pacific" "The Snake River is one of those that heads westwards from the Rockies passing just south of this spectacular Teton Range" "These peaks are the youngest of the Rocky Mountains, not yet worn down by time" "West of the Rockies lies the real wild west of America" "This is Monument Valley made famous by Hollywood and so many western films" "This desert landscape forms part of the Navaho nation tribal park which straddles the border between Utah and Arizona" "The sandstones and other rocks of this plateau were lay down 270 million years ago" "Many have been eroded into extraordinary shapes vividly colored by oxides of iron and manganese" "What we see today is just one stage in an unrelenting process" "Given a few more million years of erosion they will all have disappeared" "The amphitheater of Brice Canyon displays an unrivaled range of the patterns that wind and rain can create from rock" "This maze of colorful almost translucent pinnacles called 'hoodoos' has been sculptured by water and by the effects of heat and cold" "This is part of the high Colorado plateau often baking hot by day and freezing cold by night" "The cycle of freeze and thaw cracks layers of sandstone and limestone creating these intricate formations" "The Paiute Indians who once lived on the rim of this canyon believed the hoodoos to be bad people who as punishment had been turned to rock" "When European settlers first discovered this spectacle they drew on their own mythology to name these curious formations" "This is Thor's hammer wielded by the Nordic god of thunder" "Afternoon storms bring more rain which floods down the face of the pinnacles deepening the gullies and reshaping the canyon" "Seen from the space the most conspicuous feature of the desert southwest is the course of the Colorado River and the Grand Canyon" "In just a few million years this river has cut through the ancient Colorado plateau creating a canyon 277 miles long and in some places 18 miles wide" "At its deepest, the river now flows a mile below the level of the canyon rim" "What is revealed is a giant slice of the earth's history" "Its most ancient rocks are almost 2 billion years old which is nearly half the age of the earth itself" "The world's largest canyon creates its own awesome weather" "One day can bring both blistering desert sunshine and squalls of snow" "But another more fundamental force is at work" "The rim of the Grand Canyon is still rising and consequently the river below is still cutting its way ever deeper through the rocks" "In 1883, German settlers in Carlsbad, New Mexico discovered a cave system that turned out to be the largest and deepest in north America a place of extraordinary beauty" "Slightly acidic water seeps through the ceilings of these vast limestone caverns" "As each droplet falls into the cool chamber it deposits a tiny veneer of limestone" "So the stalagmites and stalactites grow invisibly to us but very rapidly indeed, compared to most of the processes that shaped the earth" "Each year, thousands of visitors venture down to see for themselves these spectacular limestone creations" "High in the Sierra Mountains of California lies a valley treasured by many Americans and visitors from abroad" "Yosemite National Park" "Its famous landmark Half Dome was sliced by the power of a glacier which forced its way down the canyon" "Today¡¯s melt waters follow the same route" "20,000 years ago ice filled this valley nearly to the top of Half Dome" "In place of these glaciers giant waterfalls now leap down steep cliffs to reach the valley floor" "Yosemite Falls drops nearly 2,500 feet giving it the extinction of being the tallest in north America" "We travel south now across the narrow land bridge that links north and south America" "2/3 of the South American continent lies within the tropics giving a special character to this vibrant land" "The 15th century Inca settlement of Machu Picchu is one of South America¡¯s many ancient wonders" "Elsewhere in the lowlands humanity has left few marks" "South America is a land of immense rivers and vast wildernesses" "It's also a continent with many civilizations" "Some of them mentioned and some dazzling new ones" "But it's the natural timeless wonders that we are here to investigate" "This for me is the way to find the essence of the continent" "Far from the excitements of Rio in Brazilia drifting down one of the rivers, bounded only by the forest and the sky" "It was from the sky that one of the world's greatest natural wonders was discovered by the outside world" "In 1935 flying his single engine plane high above the Venezuelan jungle" "American adventurer Jim Angel encountered this cloud shrouded plateau from which tumble countless waterfalls" "Banking to avoid the flattop of one of these high table mountains, he circled for another look" "To his amazement he saw below him a slender ribbon of water dropping sheer down to the savannah far below" "It fell 15 times the height of Niagara" "It's a leap even greater than Yosemite Falls" "In fact it's the highest waterfall in the world and its name in honor of its discoverer Angel Falls" "South America is a land of water" "In the wet season its river swell to bursting point" "In January and February the Iguazu Falls on the borders of Brazil and Argentina are at their most impressive" "Every second 10,000 tons of water tumble from the Parana plateau and thunder down into a giant Havasu Canyon" "The panorama is overwhelming as more than 200 individual falls cascade over the 2.5-mile rim" "But no river surpasses the scale and vital statistics of the Amazon" "It travels 4,000 miles from the Andes to reach the Atlantic ocean" "On its way it's joined by more than 1000 tributaries which together drain a third of south America" "Surprisingly the Amazon basin is nowhere much more than 600 feet above sea level" "For half its length the river flows through the world's greatest rainforest an area the size of western Europe" "Eventually the tropical vegetation gives way to open water" "Seven of the Amazon¡¯s major tributaries are more than 1000 miles long" "South America's other magnificent natural feature extends 5,500 miles along its entire western rim" "The Andes form the longest chain of mountains in the world 40 of the peaks are taller than any in north America" "This is Torres del Paine, in southern Chile, part of the spectacular must see from granite mountains jagged because they are still geologically young" "Lashed by fierce winds even in summer" "Their summits often hidden in cloud" "The razor-sharp contours of the southern Andean mountains have been carved by successive ice ages and glaciers still gnaw at their foundations" "In Argentina¡¯s Glacier National Park several great rivers of ice force their way down from the Patagonian ice sheet" "Lines of rock debris mark where the glaciers collide and combine their monumental forces" "In summer, the Moreno Glacier a 22-mile tongue of ice collapses into a lake" "This part of south America is one of the few places on earth where the ice is still advancing" "The two American continents are bounded to the west by the Pacific - the world's largest ocean" "Scattered across its vast expanse of thousands of islands none more dramatic than those of Hawaii" "The primordial forces that created the earth are nowhere more evident than here" "Red hot lava spews from the volcanos of Big Island - the youngest and largest of the Hawaiian chain" "The hotspot in the earth's mantel forces magma to the surface adding year by year to the 10,000 cubic miles of molten rock that in just half a million years has built this island" "From its base on the ocean floor to the space observatories on its highest summit the Big Island of Hawaii rises 30,000 feet which makes this half submerged mountain taller than Everest" "Most volcanic islands across the Pacific are much older and much smaller than Big Island" "Over geological time they've been eroded by wind and rain until all that remains above the surface are the remanets of the rim of the crater" "As the extinct volcano sinks still further coral grows forming an atoll with a central lagoon our idea of the south sea paradise" "Many atolls of the tropical Pacific barely hold their heads above water" "If our planet continues to warm and the sea level rises they may before long disappear totally beneath the waves" "Sunrise over Mt Fuji, Japan's tallest mountain" "The perfectly symmetrical cone of this volcano has not erupted since 1707 and remains a much respected natural wonder of the orient" "Asia is the largest continent and here are many manmade wonders" "The Great Wall of China dates back more than 2,000 years during which time China has become the most populated nation on earth" "But despite the impact of so many people this diverse country has retained many natural wonders" "Notably this magical place - the valley of Guilin 350 miles northwest of Hong Kong" "This valley is celebrated by the Chinese people as their country's most beautiful and inspiring landscape" "Further west in India the majestic Taj Mahal must be counted among mankind's loveliest creations" "It represents just one of the mosaic of cultures that fills this crowded quarter of the world" "Seen form space Asia¡¯s greatest natural wonder is on a different scale" "The Himalayas started rising 30 million years ago to become the highest mountain range on earth" "Looking down on the countless Himalayan peaks" "Mt." "Everest is conspicuously the tallest reaching over 29,000 feet" "Here on the roof of the world the elements of the sky do fearful battle" "Every continent has its own spectacular mountain scenery and Europe is no exception" "The Alps may not be as high as the Himalayas but they stretch for 600 miles across half a dozen different countries and they create their own marvelous romantic scenery in which you can find every kind of natural wonder" "Of the Alps' several hundred peaks" "Mt Blanc is the highest, a glistening white dome" "The pyramid-shape summit of the Matterhorn has made it one of the best-known mountains in the world dark and austere in summer green and white in winter" "It's known as the most noble rock of Europe" "From these peaks massive glaciers surge down the mountain valleys and it's here that the great rivers of Europe have their beginnings:" "the Rhine, the Rhone and the Danube" "This mountain village near Salzburg in Austria has a surprise Alpine attraction" "Here a cable railway brings visitors up to see a natural wonder that was created between 40 and 60 million years ago" "Then a great river gush from a hole in the mountain side having created a cave system that today is known as the Eisriesenwelt the world of the ice giants" "You enter the cave by a narrow doorway which keeps in the cold" "When it opens freezing air blasts out literally taking your breath away" "Visitors pick their way up a series of board walks in 700 steps" "The steep route follows the course of the ancient river that carved its way through the rock" "Up at this altitude the air in the cave remains below freezing and any water dripping into it freezes into ice formations which slowly change their shapes" "Unlike stalactites and stalagmites in other caves these formations are not made of mineral but of ice" "And they are constantly growing and changing especially now in spring when the slow fields above are melting and water is seeping through the mountain to form this underground wonderland" "Several of the formations have been given fairytale names, this is Julius castle" "Others seem to resemble animals such as this giant jellyfish and a long way form home, a polar bear" "1000 miles north above the arctic circle is some of Europe¡¯s wildest scenery" "These ice formations are created afresh each winter as the long freeze sets in" "This is a Abisko National Park in the far north of Sweden" "Its classical u-shaped glacial valley is called Lapporten which means gateway to Lapland" "On winter nights it's the setting for the fleeting natural wonder which can sometimes be viewed across the entire Arctic" "The small town of Abisko can be reached by rail making it accessible to enthusiastic watchers of the night sky" "Here if you are lucky you can observe one of nature's light shows - the aurora borealis" "At the end of the long Arctic winter summer comes suddenly to Abisko" "The waterfalls and rivers which for 8 months were frozen solid thaw to torrents" "Northwards across the lake, the night sky retains an uncanny glow" "Up here the summer is short but its hours of daylight are very long" "For about a month the sun never sets over Lapprten but skims along the horizon" "Here in the land of the midnight sun, this annual event offers yet another natural light show" "South to the world's second largest continent home to the only surviving ancient wonder of the world" " Egyptian pyramids" "Despite its long human history Africa is sparsely populated much of it is still unmarked by humanity" "Rising majestically above the plains of Tanzania, Kilimanjaro is Africa¡¯s highest mountain" "It was formed from three extinct volcanos which first erupted only a million years ago" "Mt." "Kilimanjaro is just one of about 20 volcanos rising from the bed of the Great Rift Valley" "Mt." "Kenya is the second highest mountain in Africa" "Although it stands almost directly on the equator there are permanent snowfields and glaciers around its summit" "When it first formed between 2.5 to 3 million years ago, it was probably about 2000 feet higher than it is today and it had a volcanic crater at its summit like Kilimanjaro" "To the north, the world's longest river, the Nile and the biggest desert, the Sahara" "To the south, the wide plains of the Serengeti famous for their abundant wildlife and studded with geological wonders" "All evidence of the long and eventful history of this spectacular continent" "Ngorongoro crater, a gigantic basin 12 miles wide is all that remains of an extinct volcano which once towered high above its present rim" "The Rift Valley is a 4,000-mile long fracture in the earth's crust" "Along its course are sceneries of lakes of fall" "This is the soda lake called Natron" "And in the background rises one of Africa¡¯s active volcanos Mt." "Lengai" "Lengai erupts every seven years or so spewing out black lava from its core" "Within hours this cools to a white powder giving this steep sided mountain a unique appearance that sets it apart from any other in the world" "1000 miles south of the equator beyond the Great Rift is Africa¡¯s most famous scenic wonder" "Here the wide, almost placid Zambezi River suddenly plunges over a 350-foot high cliffs creating a fall that the Africans call Mosi-oa-Tunya - 'the Smoke that Thunders'" "When 19th century explorer David Livingstone became the first European to see these impressive falls he named them in honor of his queen Victoria" "At the peak of the rains in March so much water leaps into the chasm that the view becomes hidden by mist and spray" "Our finally great African wonder is the Namib desert" "It's not as large as the Sahara, but it's probably the world's oldest desert" "Stretching for 1,300 miles it fringes the treacherous skeleton coast of Namibia in the southwest of the continent" "Here the prevailing westerly winds blowing in from the Atlantic drive the massive sand dunes far inland" "The same westerly winds now carry visitors into this remote desert to experience the magnitude and splendor of this technicolored landscape with its ever shifting shapes and colors" "Statistically this is the driest desert in Africa but dense night fogs can roll in for 50 miles or more" "The Namib is certainly a treasure in the literal sense of the world for it's the richest source of diamonds on the planet" "But for the traveler, its great glory lies in the stark beauty of its dunes" "Heading due east from southern Africa we cross the huge island of Madagascar and travel over the Indian ocean for a further 4000 miles before meeting a new dawn breaking over a very old continent" "The familar silhouettes of Sydney harbor bridge and the opera house are the icons of this young nation" "Just under 2000 miles inland almost at the very center of Australia stand landmarks that have been revered for tens of thousands of years by the first people to arrive in this ancient land" "Australia is the only nation to occupy an entire continent" "Its mainland is the biggest island in the world and its rocks are among the oldest" "These beneath my feet are 3 billion years old in that unimaginable time they've been worn down by the wind and rain and the baking sun and all the other processes of natural erosion until now Australia is also the flattest continent on the planet" "On a clear day you have an uninterrupted view from the Olgas across 20 miles of desert to the great monolith that aborigines call Uluru and European travelers in the 19th century named Ayers Rock" "It was originally formed by the upending of layers of sandstone still visible today" "Erosion by wind and water has molded its gullies and created its smooth profile" "Uluru catches what little rainfalls on this otherwise arid landscape creating a kind of oasis at its base" "As light varies throughout the day" "Uluru seems almost magically to change color" "But this immense boulder is an exception for the most part of Australian center is as flat country as you can find anywhere" "It's also one of the driest places on earth" "Vast areas of it are desert far from the influence of the sea but there are 20,000 miles of coastline and that is where most Australians live" "Waves from the Antarctic beat against Australia¡¯s southern shores" "Year by year, century by century this coastline is retreating leaving behind relics of these past frontiers" "West of Melbourne, limestone stacks called the 12 Apostles rise 150 feet above the waves" "New stacks have constantly been formed as waves cut into the headlands on both sides" "Harder rocks more resistant to erosion survive longer" "The different layers of limestone were laid down as sediment on the floor of an ancient and long vanished sea" "The ocean is now reclaiming the land that it once helped to create" "In the northwest of Australia is a remote and fascinating region of the Kimberleys" "It has a jagged coastline with many inlets that reach deep inland" "The tides sweep into them with amazing speed and ferocity" "Talbot Bay forms part of one of the larger inlets" "From the air you can see the way this almost landlocked bay is linked to the rest of the inlet by two narrow channels through which the tides race in and out" "The inland next to the bay narrows to 20 feet of water level following the tide as it ebbs and flows" "It's this twice daily event that makes Talbot Bay Australia¡¯s most unusual natural wonder" "The surest way in is by seaplane boats rarely venture here and there were no roads few people who have seen this spectacle" "As the tide floods in, millions of gallons surge into the bay forcing the water onwards through the furthest narrows" "The water level in the bay can rise by 36 feet making it one of the largest tidal changes in the world" "But it's the power and speed of the ebb and flow that is so impressive" "The power house that drives this phenomenon is to be found 30 miles out to sea on the huge Montgomery Reef that fringes this coastline" "Here as the tide retreats from the vast shallow shelf tremendous suction is generated as the ocean pulls off the reef" "It takes 4 hours for the effect to reach Talbot Bay then the tide turns and the water flows back towards the sea" "Known as the Horizontals, these extraordinary tidal races through Talbot Bay are a compelling reminder of the colossal power of the ocean tides" "Here in the arid heart of the continent it's hot and dry for most of the time hardly the place for large human settlements" "But that's what makes the outback for me so unforgettable and so important" "Here you can sense the great antiquity of the earth and the trivial length of time that humanity has been part of the history" "The Purnululu National Park is also part of the Kimberley region of northwestern Australia" "This puzzling landscape is known as the Bungle Bungles" "The bedrock of this plateau is very ancient lay down in the estuaries of rivers early in the earth's history" "But the curious beehive-shaped domes of sandstone are comparatibly recent creations shaped during the last 20 million years" "The bizarre striping is due to the way alternate layers of sandstone have developed a protective coating of either red iron oxide or blue green lichens" "If it were not for this natural covering, the fragile sandstone shapes would have been worn down long ago" "This jewel of the Kimberleys is now one of Australia¡¯s 500 national parks all illustrating chapters in the country's long and dramatically geological story" "The largest of Australia¡¯s natural wonders is the Great Barrier Reef" "It fringes 1400 miles off the tropical Queensland coast" "It's a complex mosaic of 3,000 individual reefs and many small islands all built of coral and sand" "Evolved over hundreds of thousands of years it's one of nature's most impressive creations" "The first astronauts to circle the earth reported they could make out the color and shapes of the individual reefs and lagoons and the vivid blue of the deeper open water in between" "Closer to the surface the seperate coral formations become discerniable" "Each one is a community of different kinds of coral that between them creates these intricate limestone structures" "This colony of brain coral is 20 feet in diameter and perhaps 2000 years old" "Just one component part of the largest living structure on our planet" "In contrast to Australia, New Zealand has a skyline dominated by mountains" "Tallest of all is Mt." "Cook, part of the young rugged spine of South Island" "The southwest coast is cut through by fjords this is Milford Sound, 12 miles long, 1000 feet deep and flanked by the world's tallest sea cliffs" "To the south of New Zealand, the Great Southern Ocean encircles the 7th continent" " Ataractica the most remote and inhospitable place on earth" "70% of the planet's entire reserves of freshwater are locked up in Antarctica¡¯s massive icecap" "Only near the fringes of the continent are their visible signs of mountains" "The great bulk of the land is out of sight hidden beneath 2 miles of permanent ice" "Here, at the bottom of the world is its greatest wilderness" "Its bleakness is a reminder of how much of our planet must have looked during its many ice ages" "In the summer months the margins of the continent warm to the long hours of sunlight" "Antarctica becomes a little less hostile" "The sea thaws and the first summer visitors arrive" "Humpback whales are worldwide travelers breeding in the tropics and migrating to the 2 polar regions to feed on the summer bonanza of krill" "They enjoy the best of both worlds" "Throughout our world, there's a rich diversity of life that in itself is a direct consequence of the wonderfully varied natural features and landscapes of our planet" "But no matter what the future of life may be nothing would change the forces that shape the face of our planet long before life began" "Transcription by Andrew  Hattie"