Episode 3

In the final show live from Charmouth in Dorset, Dan Snow and the team go deep into the subject that has made this stretch of coastline world famous: its fossils. Lucy Cooke travels to London to understand how one plucky entrepreneurial woman, Mary Anning, rocked 19th-century Britain with her fossil finds. And the work of Mary continues to inspire scientists today as Lucy finds out when she travels to Oxford to help reconstruct a plesiosaur. Found only in Charmouth, the best-preserved dinosaur in the UK still has many mysteries. Niall Strawson joins Bristol scientists to help piece the jigsaw of an ichthyosaur together. Dan and Lucy Cooke carry out a live demonstration of burning rock and unpack the history of oil production at nearby Kimmeridge. The team are also on the trail of some living fossils. Dragonflies are prominent at this time of year on the coast in Dorset, but how have these majestic insects survived two mass extinctions?