Phenomena associated with plate tectonics; the Galapagos Islands are made famous by Charles Darwin; this island is on a volcanic hotspot near a mid-ocean ridge, formed by moving tectonic plates; natural wonders abound, both above and below water.

A striking feature of the African Rift Valley is the lava lake at Erta Ale in Ethiopia; this seething cauldron of molten rock is the oldest of the world's five active lava lakes; it replicates on a small scale the complex process of plate tectonics.

The evolution of life is revealed in the rare fossils of the Burgess Shale in British Columbia; this mountainside quarry records the proliferation of new organisms, both familiar and bizarre, that follow a mass extinction half a billion years ago.