Stunning image of erupting volcano reminds us of Earth’s violent past

A PLUCKY weather balloon (pictured above) is about to be hurled into a supercell, a rare and destructive type of thunderstorm that often spawns potent tornadoes. The meteorologists facing down this tempest in Kansas are probing complex weather systems.

Without such work, we would know little about our atmosphere. Its formation and development, along with other tumultuous periods in our planet’s past, play a big part in a new book, Earth: Over 4 billion years in the making, the source of all the images here.

Conservationist Chris Packham (pictured holding a dinosaur skull, above) co-authored the volume with Andrew Cohen, head of the Science Unit at BBC Studios. It is a counterpart to Earth, a five-part documentary that brings the deep past to life through cutting-edge research and vivid CGI.

While our world is still peppered with active volcanoes, such as Tungurahua in Ecuador (pictured above), Earth’s early days were rocked by a glut of them, roiling with lava and spewing gases. Yet some of today’s successful organisms emerged from planet-altering eruptions relatively unchanged.

Cyanobacteria, for example, took root 3.5 billion years ago. Seen through a microscope (pictured above) is a filamentous cyanobacterium of the genus Oscillatoria. Organisms like this are part of the “microbial mats” that create vibrant colours in the thermal waters of Grand Prismatic Spring, Yellowstone National Park, US (pictured below). Heat-loving bacteria are extremophiles, organisms that can survive in environments once thought to rule out life.

The book Earth is out now and the TV series is on BBC iPlayer.

Earth: Over 4 billion years in the making (HarperCollins)