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00:00Life began here in Britain more than a billion years ago and when dinosaurs and other strange
00:09creatures roamed our land, they left fascinating clues behind.
00:14Fossils hold the key to discovering the secrets of ancient life and allow us a tantalising
00:20glimpse of Britain's prehistoric past.
00:23Mountains the size of Everest have come and gone and the evidence for all that is here
00:29is in the rocks, in the landscape and in the fossils buried inside and we're on a mission
00:35to find and examine that evidence, to unlock the secrets of the past and discover lost
00:41worlds.
00:42So get ready for some time travel with the Fossil Detectives.
00:59The Fossil Detectives are on a journey through the British Isles, this time in the north
01:14of England.
01:17We'll find out how John Lennon is linked to fossils, the truth behind the Victorians'
01:24favourite stone, we'll get a rare glimpse of a brand new fossil discovery and investigate
01:32mysterious prehistoric footprints.
01:45My first stop here in the north of England is on the Yorkshire coast.
01:52I've been told that there's some evidence of prehistoric life actually in this cliff
02:08base.
02:09But first I have to work my way down the rock layers.
02:24All these little layers, each layer here represents a little slice of the Earth's history, almost
02:32like pages in a diary of time if you like.
02:36I mean, each few millimetres here represents a few hundred, maybe a few thousand years.
02:43And this whole section that I'm coming down here, right down to the beach, that's about
02:47five to six million years of time.
02:50And as we have sailed down, we're literally just going back in time.
03:04You get a completely different perspective of time and place when you see the strata
03:08so close like this.
03:16But where's the evidence that a dinosaur was here?
03:20Look, this is it.
03:23Come and see.
03:24This is what I've been looking for.
03:26You see this overhang of orange rocks in the cliff face, and underneath them you've got
03:32almost like hanging down half footballs, like bulbous balloon shapes out the bottom.
03:41And what have you got to imagine?
03:43Think back 175 million years ago.
03:46Big dinosaur, a sauropod, maybe a brachiosaurus, one of those long-necked, long-tailed ones
03:51with a little head, walking across some sand or some sticky mud.
03:56And each footprint creates a big depression underneath it.
04:01And a big elephant type of foot with claws depressing down the mud.
04:08These footprints may be quite hard to distinguish, but if you know what you're looking for, anyone
04:13can go dinosaur hunting.
04:15And as the cliff's worn away, we can see the underside of the depression.
04:20And it is amazing.
04:22It's incredible.
04:23It's here in Yorkshire.
04:29Abseiling down the cliff, in the rocks you can literally see the passage of time.
04:36And here, real dinosaur footprints, dating back to Jurassic times in Britain.
04:43A little further along the coastline here in Yorkshire, I've heard there's an intriguing
05:01new fossil just exposed on the beach.
05:08A fossil is any evidence of ancient life naturally preserved.
05:14Phil Manning is a professional dinosaur hunter and one of our regular fossil detectives.
05:20Hi, Phil.
05:21Hi there.
05:22What are you looking at?
05:24You've got to come and look at this.
05:25This is a gorgeous fossil.
05:28You really rarely get to see one still stuck in a beach bed like this.
05:33Wow.
05:34So what is this?
05:35Is this a spine?
05:38You're absolutely right.
05:39You're looking down the backbone of a sea dragon, a marine reptile that was stalking
05:43the oceans 190 million years ago.
05:47And from these bones, do you know what creature it was?
05:51What reptile?
05:52Absolutely.
05:53You can look at the actual shape of the bones.
05:54It tells us straight away we're dealing with an animal called an ichthyosaur.
05:57An ichthyosaur.
05:58Right.
05:59Literally meaning fish, lizard.
06:00These pieces here, are they individual vertebrae like we have in our spines?
06:05They are indeed.
06:06You can see the discs that would have padded in between each vertebrae.
06:09Obviously these have turned to stone over the 190 million years, but they show the spacing
06:13of the vertebrae.
06:14It's beautiful.
06:15To actually have the discs, that's incredible preservation.
06:17Well they've turned to stone.
06:19This is still, it's a fossil.
06:21The original material is long gone.
06:23And is this quite a recent exposure?
06:25Yeah, a local group have found this fossil quite recently.
06:29And you can see how it's already been weathered quite badly by the seas on this wave cut platform.
06:34But at low tide, we get to see it for a few hours.
06:36Yes, indeed.
06:37And so how big was this ichthyosaur?
06:41Well you're looking at an animal about three to four metres in length, and this is a marine
06:46reptile.
06:47I know it's called a fish lizard, ichthyosaur, but it is a reptile, an air-breathing reptile.
06:51If you can imagine, it's got this long snout, lots of teeth, going into a really streamlined
06:57body.
06:58It's got small paddles at the front, and paddles at the back, and almost a shark-like tail with
07:04a beautiful dorsal fin, just like you'd see on a shark.
07:08But this is a reptile.
07:10These animals were perfectly adapted, streamlined, to living in a marine environment.
07:16These bones embedded in the rock are the fossilised remains of the animal itself.
07:22So what's going to happen to this fossil?
07:27Well, it's been weathered quite badly, but there's a huge amount of information we can
07:30get from the backbone.
07:33The most important information, though, would have been from the skull.
07:36Now unfortunately for us, some folks got to the specimen before we could.
07:43Now, sometimes people dig things out of the ground and they don't have the right tools,
07:48knowledge or expertise, and this can happen, and this is where the skull was.
07:54Now it's sort of a cautionary tale, in fact we've only got the tale, the caution is don't
07:59remove the skull.
08:01It had all information on what the animal was like, probably even down to a species
08:05level, and that's gone, that information has been lost.
08:07So here I think that's even a chisel mark, you can see where somebody's tried to lever
08:11out the skull.
08:12It's so frustrating.
08:13It's a shame.
08:14If you find something like this, the best thing to do is go to your local museum, or
08:18there are groups around the country who specialise in knowing exactly what to do when you find
08:22a fossil.
08:23And the most frustrating thing for me, I can actually see where some of the skull bones
08:27once lay.
08:28That's where part of the skull, the rostrum, was once sat, and it's just gone.
08:35Should we take some records of it, even though it's partially gone?
08:37There's still a lot of information we can record, so it's definitely worth doing, yes.
08:58I've come a little way along the coast to Whitby, world-famous home of Whitby Jet.
09:11It's extraordinary to think that Jet, which is actually a fossil, was responsible for
09:16an entire industry.
09:19In Victorian times, one and a half thousand men, women and children were employed here,
09:24making and selling Jet jewellery.
09:30You're probably familiar with the expression Jet Black.
09:33In fact, people have been saying that since the 12th century, referring to the jet that
09:38you find in this area.
09:40But what you might not know is what Jet actually is.
09:44Now this is a beautifully carved Jet bead necklace, dating back from the late 1800s.
09:53The first thing you notice about it is how light it is.
09:57But what is Jet made from?
10:00To find out, I've arranged to meet one of our regular fossil detectives, the botanist
10:05James Wong.
10:06Well, James, I've got these other lovely specimens from the museum here.
10:11So go on, tell us.
10:12What is it?
10:13Well, you wouldn't think it, because it looks like this hard, black, shiny mineral, but
10:18it's actually fossilised driftwood.
10:19Driftwood.
10:20I actually think that makes a lot of sense, because it feels so light.
10:24But it's not like the petrified, fossilised wood that I'm used to seeing, which is brown
10:29and like a stone.
10:30Why is this so different?
10:32What the difference is, is the petrified wood is where the chemicals, or what's made up
10:36of the wood, is replaced by minerals, turning it literally into stone, whereas this is pretty
10:41much original wood that's been completely compressed and compacted and preserved over
10:46118 million years.
10:48Now when you say wood, can it be any type of tree that forms jet?
10:52We believe it's mainly a primitive conifer, monkey puzzle, believe it or not.
10:57Ah, the monkey puzzle.
10:59This is a piece of one of the first few trees that was introduced to the UK, and we know
11:03it comes from monkey puzzle, because if you take a section of it and pop it under a microscope,
11:08magnified 120 times, you find that the structure is virtually identical.
11:13So you can still see the structure of the wood in the jet?
11:16You can even see growth rings on a really good piece, which is absolutely amazing.
11:20That's fantastic.
11:21So how does it actually form?
11:23OK, what happens is, the UK was actually a much more tropical environment back then,
11:28and monsoon rivers used to flush entire trees out into the sea, which covered much of Yorkshire.
11:33And when these things were battered and broken in this sea and slowly sank, they were covered
11:37by layer upon layer of sediment, which did two things.
11:40Firstly, it cut off all the oxygen supply, so that bacteria had a hard time breaking
11:44them down.
11:45And secondly, as these layers built up, they built this huge pressure, which compacted
11:49the wood, reduced a large amount of the water content, and basically impregnated it with
11:54chemicals.
11:55And 180 million years later, it resurfaces as a jet.
11:57Look at this, look at this.
11:59Oh, I love it.
12:00Look at this.
12:01That is spiky.
12:02That's fantastic.
12:03So you go from this, to this, through fossilisation.
12:15Whitby is still home to a thriving jet industry.
12:27Mike Marshall uses age-old techniques, and the same sort of machinery that the Victorians
12:33would have used.
12:41Mike's going to show me the best places to find jet on the beach.
12:51So where's a good place, then, to look for jet?
12:53To look for the jet.
12:55Well, all the jet is in situ in the cliffs.
13:00Right.
13:01After storms, it's washed out the cliff, and it's taken into the sea, and it's rolled about
13:07and tumbled about.
13:08Right.
13:09And then it gets washed back onto the foreshore.
13:12And if we're lucky, we might find some pieces of jet.
13:15So really, we might actually just find some bits in there?
13:17Well, you never know.
13:18Yeah, that's it, yeah.
13:19It's pot luck, really.
13:20Well, that's jet, but it's very, very poor quality jet.
13:50But you found it just like that?
13:51Yeah.
13:52I'm going to be looking.
13:53That was just on the tideline.
13:54So does it feel soft to you?
13:55Yeah, it just doesn't look right.
13:56It's not got that...
13:57It gets a natural shine once it's been in the sea and tumbled around.
14:01Right.
14:02It gets a natural shine on it, so...
14:03Okay, so that's a bit dull.
14:04Yeah, it is, really, yeah.
14:09Occasionally, we find it up in the cliffs.
14:11You can see where it's actually been mined in the cliffs there.
14:14Those caves aren't natural.
14:16They've actually been mined.
14:18The rock around it is sort of very grey or very brown, and all of a sudden, you'll come
14:22across a very thin layer of black.
14:24There you are.
14:25There we go.
14:26Have you found some?
14:27Yeah.
14:28You see that?
14:29Yeah.
14:30You see the difference between the rock, the grey rock around it, and then you've got the,
14:36well, the jet black.
14:37As you say.
14:38As you say.
14:39Absolutely.
14:40Check that out.
14:41That is amazing.
14:42Look, you can see.
14:43So that could have been a squashed branch or a tree trunk.
14:46It's roughly about that sort of width there, so I would think it would be a branch.
14:51Have you found some?
14:52A branch of wood, sort of that diameter, and it's actually been compressed.
14:57Wow.
14:58So would that be worth, like, hacking out?
15:01Are you allowed to do that?
15:02Can you collect jet from the cliffs?
15:05As long as you're not digging great big holes in the cliff, yeah.
15:07Okay.
15:08I mean, really, I mean, you've got to think about the safety aspect of it as well.
15:11You're digging underneath the cliffs and that, so it's better to actually go on the beach
15:15and find it where it's been washed back in.
15:17You've got to remember, this is a marine environment.
15:21You're not just looking for jet, there's also fossils within the shales.
15:27What kind of thing do you find?
15:29Ammonites mostly.
15:30Ammonites?
15:31I mean, yesterday I collected this piece, which came from further up the coast.
15:36An ammonite is a marine creature from prehistoric times.
15:41Although the soft parts of the animal have long gone, the hard part, its shell, has been
15:46turned to stone by the addition of extra minerals.
15:50That's beautiful.
15:52You actually get ammonites preserved, not squashed like that, but actually 3D within
15:57the nodules, and this is one that I picked up on the beach.
16:02You can see the outer world just poking out there, and you've just found that and picked
16:09it up?
16:10Yep.
16:12And what's inside?
16:13Well, we stuck a chisel in there earlier on and popped it open, and inside...
16:22Oh, that's stunning.
16:23This is what we call an ammonite.
16:28That is a beauty.
16:29And look at this colouring around here, sort of gold.
16:32The gold, again, that's 1880s.
16:35Right.
16:36So that's the mineralisation?
16:37It is, yeah.
16:38Of the actual marine animal.
16:40God, it's fantastic.
16:42I get a buzz every time I open one of these things, because, you know, when that's popped
16:48open and you have a look at that, you're not the first person, you're the only person to
16:53see that in 180 million years.
16:56And that's what fossil hunting is all about.
16:59You're the very first person to see something since it was alive millions of years ago.
17:10Imagine a time when Britain used to be a desert to rival the Kalahari or the Sahara.
17:18Back in the Triassic, the geological period dating from 250 to 200 million years ago,
17:24the temperature here on the northwest coast was so high that it was impossible to measure
17:30how hot it was.
17:31So, what we've done is we've taken the temperature of the desert,
17:34and we've taken it to the north, so that we can measure the temperature of the desert.
17:39And what we've done is we've taken the temperature of the desert,
17:44the temperature here on the northwest coast was scorching hot.
17:50Desert conditions neither encourage life nor preserve life after death,
17:56which means it's very rare to find fossils.
18:02So, what evidence of life could we hope to find from that time?
18:07There's an unexpected surprise on the outskirts of Liverpool, in a church.
18:19Remarkably, a set of fossilised footprints dating from the Triassic
18:24were found nearby almost 200 years ago.
18:28One section was built into the porch here at Higher Bebbington.
18:34These fossilised footprints are called chiraetherium,
18:37which is Latin for hand beast, because of the distinctive paws the creature had.
18:43What you're looking at is a series of lumps sticking out from the wall.
18:47These are the footprints the animal left as it walked along the mud.
18:52Each one is about 20 centimetres across.
18:58These fossils are what we call trace fossils.
19:02Like others which preserve the actual bodily remains of a plant or a creature from the past,
19:08a trace fossil records its activity, literally traces of ancient life.
19:13These trace fossils can take many different forms,
19:16from the footprints that we saw over in Yorkshire
19:19to the burrows or the tunnels made by other types of creatures.
19:24But how do these trace fossils actually form?
19:28Well, in this case, the animal walked across some soft mud,
19:33leaving the imprint of its feet as it went along.
19:37Those footprints were then baked hard by the sun
19:40and filled in by another layer of sediment and mud,
19:44all of which then solidified and was compressed and turned into rock.
19:48Now, that rock then split, revealing a plaster cast, if you like, of those footprints.
19:56And it's those plaster casts which are now up on the side of the church.
20:02These fossils have attracted numerous visitors.
20:05And the author of The Water Babies,
20:08Reverend Charles Kingsley, was fascinated by the Chirotherium.
20:12He wrote an entire thesis on what creature may have made them in his book Town Geology.
20:20The creature must have been a right loathly monster.
20:24One pictures him to oneself as a short, squat brute,
20:29as big as a fat hog, with a head very much the shape of a baboon,
20:34very large hands behind and small ones in front,
20:38waddling about on the tide flats of a sandy sea
20:41and dragging after him, seemingly, a short tail which has left its mark on the sand.
20:48What his colour was, whether he was smooth or warty,
20:52what he ate and, in general, how he got his living, we know not.
21:00But nowadays, we can find out.
21:04We now know that a reptile called a Rauisuchian made the tracks.
21:09But we're still just beginning to find out
21:12what its surroundings were like when it was alive.
21:18The clues lie in the ecology of the area.
21:25Here in Merseyside, there's a small team based at the World Museum, Liverpool,
21:30who are trying to find out what the environment in Britain
21:34would have been like in Triassic times.
21:40Alan Bowden specialises in analysing plant fossil fragments,
21:46which help put together a picture
21:48of what that lost world would have been like.
21:55This was the local environment as envisaged by an artist
21:59and it reflects views and opinions of some 20 years ago
22:03and we're actually seeing a very arid environment.
22:06We've got dunes, some high ground, a standing pool of water
22:10with just a couple of plants in it.
22:14Horsetails like this are still growing in Britain today,
22:18a beautiful legacy from prehistoric times.
22:22These days, of course, the Wirral is lush and temperate.
22:27Looking at these ferns, it's hard to grasp that the fossils
22:31the museum team are analysing
22:33are a tiny fraction of the size of plants like this.
22:37The fossils range from half a millimetre
22:41to a maximum of just a centimetre in length.
22:44They've never found an entire plant so far
22:47and that's what makes their job so incredibly difficult.
22:52Imagine taking your garden,
22:55digging the whole thing up,
22:57putting it into compost heap for a few years,
23:00let it rot well down,
23:02tip it all out, shake out all the fragments
23:05and then from that, rebuild your garden.
23:09It's that type of task, only 100 times more difficult.
23:12Because you're dealing with fossil plant fragments.
23:15We're dealing with fossil plant fragments
23:17and one of the problems is that you often don't know
23:20which bit goes where, whether you're looking at a root,
23:23part of a stem, a fruiting body, a seed, often you can't tell.
23:27And if you do know which bit is which,
23:29which plant do they belong to?
23:31Because you never find the complete thing.
23:34It's like beginning to fit a jigsaw together.
23:38But they are still trying to make a picture
23:41of what the landscape was like.
23:49Paleontology, the study of fossils,
23:52offers us an insight into the evolution of life
23:55and the changing environments through time.
23:59Fossils hold the key to understanding life itself.
24:08And with fossil detective work,
24:10there's always another mystery to solve
24:13and always another surprise around the corner.
24:25So what exactly does John Lennon have to do with fossils?
24:32Liverpool John Lennon Airport is an intriguing place.
24:37At first glance, it's not obvious,
24:39but the walls and floors are made from limestone tiles
24:43embedded with millions and millions of fossils.
24:57And this is one of the best specimens.
25:00An ammonite dating from the Middle Jurassic,
25:05about 170 million years old.
25:09These extinct creatures swam in tropical seas
25:12and oceans all over the world.
25:15Most of an ammonite's body was housed in the open end
25:18of a spiral shell.
25:20The inner parts of the shell were divided up
25:23into hollow, gas-filled pockets.
25:26Ammonites thrived in the seas
25:28at the same time as dinosaurs dominated the land.
25:35Lurking within the shiny surface of this German limestone,
25:39you can also find fossilised belemnites,
25:42which are a bit like squid, and trace fossils.
25:46Prehistoric life at an airport.
25:54Fossils from millions of years ago
25:57also link directly with our present lives
26:00in the form of fossil fuel.
26:03The Port of England is famous for its coal mines.
26:06Here at the National Coal Mining Museum in Wakefield,
26:09you can go deep underground to see coal up close for yourself.
26:14Get ready.
26:16Oh! That's hardly it!
26:19That's a small drain.
26:33You can really see how it's made up...
26:36Coal is made up of layer upon layer of swampy plant material
26:40that's all been compressed, all the water squeezed out,
26:43and this is just really the carbon remains
26:46from those forests dating back to over 300 million years ago.
26:51And this stuff, coal,
26:53generates about 40% of the world's electricity needs,
26:57and in Britain, over 90% of our energy
27:01comes from fossil fuels, coal, oil and gas.
27:09It takes millions and millions of years to form,
27:13but once it's gone, it's gone.
27:20There's been life on Earth for almost four billion years.
27:25Coal is just one piece of evidence
27:29that we can reach out and touch from prehistoric times.
27:33Fossilised remains of ancient life
27:36are solid memories of worlds long gone.
27:40Without fossils, many of our land's ancient secrets
27:44would remain unknown.
27:46Fossils unlock the mysteries of the past
27:50and inspire the explorer in all of us.
27:59Fossilised remains of ancient life
28:02are solid memories of worlds long gone.
28:06Without fossils, many of our land's ancient secrets
28:10would remain unknown.
28:12Fossils unlock the mysteries of the past
28:16and inspire the explorer in all of us.
28:20Fossilised remains of ancient life
28:23are solid memories of worlds long gone.
28:28Fossilised remains of ancient life
28:31are solid memories of worlds long gone.