Britain is geologically gifted from the ancient Precambrian rocks of north west Scotland, to the rich Carboniferous coalseams, from the Jurassic Coast in Dorset to Arthurs Seat in Edinburgh, and from the thick clay that underlies London to Welsh gold mines - this series will show how this varied and dramatic island archipelago is home to many of our planets best kept secrets. In our tiny island the geological diversity is amazing and the mineral wealth immense or at least it once was. The Romans came for copper and gold. The high grade coal fuelled the industrial revolution and its oil still spews from under the ocean.Most Britons take their surroundings, their landscape, for granted; yet almost every inch of Britain has undergone spectacular changes in its time. We will exploit this perception of the landscape as timeless and blow it apart, taking specific parts of Britain that are emblematic of the major geological events, so that viewers will understand exactly what lay in place of todays High Streets millions of years ago. As a country, were obsessed with our national identity - yet as we fly over the continental shelf, we explain how arbitrary the iconic shape of our country is and that in fact, with plate movement, rising seas and erosion, in the both the past and the future Britains shape was and will be totally different. Similarly, these days, if an unusual animal such as a big cat is spotted somewhere it makes all the newspapers. How much more astonishing then to realise that due to the changing nature of the environment, hippos and rhinos once wandered around Southend-on-Sea, that Polar Bears swam in the area of the Thames, or that giant dinosaurs lived where Lyme Regis is today? And how many of us know that the evidence of the earliest creatures on earth is to be found just off the M1 near Loughborough?