Plankton mark seasons in the sea, just like leaves and flowers on land: Marine phytoplankton, magnified 400 times. Ekky Ilham/Shutterstock Britain’s seas are rich in wildlife, but many of its species can only be seen with a microscope. These are the plankton – tiny plants and animals found throughout the ocean that are the foundation …
Small but mighty, plankton are some of the most powerful creatures on Earth: Choksawatdikorn/Shutterstock If you go to the beach and dip a bucket in the sea, you might at first think it contains lifeless water. But examine that water under a microscope and you will see your bucket contains a universe of microscopic life, …
How plankton helped create the Earth’s mountains 2 billion years ago: The Himalayas. Liudmila Kotvictchkaia/Shutterstock A world without the great mountain ranges – the Himalayas, the Alps, the Rockies, the Andes – is unimaginable, but they were not always a part of the Earth’s geography. Mountains didn’t start forming widely until 2 billion years ago, …