The atlas
Two ways down
The whole site, sorted into sixteen collections. Go down through the planet, from the edge of space to the centre of the core, or back through time, from today to the first solid grains of the Solar System.
34 written 135 in outline, being written
Down through the planet
Space
Space environment
The Sun, the solar wind and the shield around us
0 written, 12 in outline
12 pieces in outlineAtmosphere
The air, and how it came to have oxygen in it
1 written, 11 in outline
- How the air changed Lesson
Oceans and water
The sea, the sea floor and the water cycle
2 written, 10 in outline
- The ocean floor Lesson
- Tsunamis Lesson
Landforms
Mountains, valleys and coasts, and what made them
1 written, 9 in outline
- How mountains rise Lesson
Natural hazards
When the ground shakes, erupts or floods
3 written, 7 in outline
- Earthquakes Lesson
- Volcanoes Lesson
- Tsunamis Lesson
Rocks and minerals
What the ground is made of, and what it records
1 written, 9 in outline
- Reading the rocks Lesson
Plate tectonics
The moving plates that carry the continents
4 written, 6 in outline
- Moving plates Lesson
- Pangaea and the break-up Lesson
- Britain’s long journey Lesson
- The globe through time Explorer
Interior
Crust, mantle and core, down 6,371 km
3 written, 8 in outline
- Surface to Core Explorer
- Inside the Earth Lesson
- The magnetic field Lesson
The centre, 6,371 km down
Back through time
Now
Climate history
Hothouses, ice ages and the climate we have now
1 written, 7 in outline
- Ice ages Lesson
Fossils and extinction
How life gets into the rocks, and how it vanishes
2 written, 10 in outline
- Fossils Lesson
- Mass extinctions Lesson
Prehistoric life
The animals and plants of lost worlds
5 written, 5 in outline
- The dinosaur encyclopaedia Encyclopaedia
- The dinosaurs Lesson
- The age of mammals Lesson
- Coal forests Lesson
- Ancient life, layer by layer Encyclopaedia
Evolution of life
From the first cells to us
7 written, 5 in outline
- Where life began Lesson
- The first animals Lesson
- Onto the land Lesson
- Before the dinosaurs Lesson
- How dinosaurs became birds Lesson
- Flowers and insects Lesson
- Before us Lesson
Geological time
How deep time is measured, named and dated
3 written, 6 in outline
- The timescale Reference
- The Walk Explorer
- How old is the Earth? Lesson
Origins
How the Earth and the Moon began
1 written, 8 in outline
- The first billion years Lesson
4,567 million years ago
After the last ice age, the story carries on in people: see Our Centuries, our sister site on human history.