The amazing journey of the UK and Ireland

It's known as the birthplace of geology and that's not just down to the clever people of the islands, the incredible variety of rocks tell an amazing tale just begging to be told.

We have some of the youngest and oldest rocks (you can find pieces of the original crust of the Earth from all of 2.7 billion years ago in the Outer Hebrides) all within a relatively small area.

So let's get started!

One billion years ago the UK and Ireland were part of a great big supercontinent called Rodinia in the Southern Hemisphere.

Rodinia then broke up and started heading north.

600 millions years ago Scotland and Northern Ireland were part of a continent near the equator. This continent also included land that would become North America and Asia.

England, Wales and Ireland on the other hand were 5,000km away, hanging out minding their own business just outside the Antarctic Circle.

It's a little difficult to get your head around, but during this time there was very little land north of the equator, most of it was in the middle with a few patches further south.

At the same time south west England was underwater, while the Lake District and Wales could boast loads of volcanoes!

500 million years ago England, Wales and Ireland started to head north and a hundred million years later they smashed into Scotland. This created the Southern Uplands of Scotland.

By 300 million years ago the British Isles had managed to get to the equator and enjoyed a hot, tropical climate - all lush forests and swamps. And this is where all our coal came from.

It got even hotter 200 million years ago and the jungle turned into desert. This is when the red rock you see in the south west and the midlands were formed.

By 100 million years ago a huge ocean formed right around the world at the equator and the UK and Ireland were well and truly in the northern hemisphere.

Around the same time another ocean was forming from north to south. This would become the Atlantic and it separated South America from Africa.

At 60 million years ago North America was ripped away from the UK, which was a little traumatic and created volcanoes and plenty of earth rumbling.

It all went a little quiet after that. It was all going off in Europe, though, as the Alps were being pushed up into the sky.

Anyway, back to the UK. After a long period of climate cooling, two million years ago saw glaciers advance as south as the the southern-most tip of England.

We were buried under a huge ice sheet.

When things warmed up and the ice melted, sea levels rose and created the North Sea, the English Channel and the Irish Sea. Up until this point, Ireland was attached to England.

And from then on it was a case of cold and hot... glaciers advancing and receding.

Looking into the future now. Putting global warming and future ice ages aside, what we do know that in another 200 million years or so the continents will get back together again to form a supercontinent in the northern hemisphere.

But we think the UK and Ireland will stick together!

Weird Science Factoid: Pumpkin rule of thumb - the darker the shell, the longer it lasts. Handy to know for Hallowe'en.

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