Jewel of the Earth

Celebrated naturalist Sir David Attenborough proves to be the best possible host for Jewel of the Earth, a captivating episode (co-produced with the BBC) of WGBH's NOVA series that explores the origin and fossil-preserving secrets of ancient amber. This familiar hardened and fossilized tree resin, which has provided scientists with some of the most well-preserved fossil remains from ancient history, has been a subject of fascination for Attenborough ever since he was given a 40-million-year-old piece of Baltic amber when he was a young boy—a treasure he has kept ever since that serves here as the basis for scientific analysis. Adding yet another layer of personal significance, it was David's equally famous brother, film director and actor Sir Richard Attenborough, who appeared in Steven Spielberg's 1993 blockbuster Jurassic Park, playing the entrepreneur whose extraction of dinosaur DNA from ancient amber allowed him to clone new, present-day dinosaurs, with inevitably tragic results. With this in mind, Attenborough consults numerous experts to determine if such a science-fiction scenario is actually possible (it isn't, due to incomplete DNA sampling), and along the way viewers learn all about how amber is formed, its most prominent sources (the Baltic region of Northern Europe and the Dominican Republic), and how insects, plants, microbes, and even small animals have been fully preserved in amber samples for millions of years. As always, Attenborough's fascination with nature is infectious, and the secrets revealed in his own piece of amber open the door to an entire ecosystem from a temperate Baltic-region forest that existed long before the evolution of humans. Central to this lively, fascinating analysis is evidence of Pangaea, the super-continent that once united most of Earth's land masses. An intriguing scientific odyssey featuring one of the world's most admired populists of science and nature, this is highly recommended. Aud: H, C, P. (J. Shannon)