MEMBER REVIEW: This 90-minute 2012 National Geographic production is entirely CGI. It is based on real video, but they digitized it and it can be weird and difficult to watch on occasion. They go down into the earth in various places to explore in reverse some of the history of the planet. They explore plate tectonics in visual detail, and show a slow-motion earthquake. They show various gemstones and minerals and how they formed. The sound of amethysts growing was strange. It is really interesting, but again all CGI. Finally they go into the mantle and you see old slabs of crust, and mantle plumes. Then they get to the core, the center of the labyrinth. (Yeah they get a bit purple in places.) Towering tornadoes of liquid metal. They detail how magnetism is driven by the core, and how it all protects the earth. Then the core inside the core-giant crystalline nickel-iron. Heat vs. Pressure. If you can deal with the CGI, it is an interesting DVD and they talk about things that are cutting edge. Definitely worth watching.

Description: Experience an earthquake inside the San Andreas Fault, blast out of a volcano, encounter bizarre cave-dwelling creatures and enter

caves full of giant crystals – all inside our planet. As we descend we piece together the extraordinary storyof our planet, layer by layer,

discovering how prehistoric forests became modern-day fuel, witnessing the dinosaurs’ cataclysmic death, and watching as stalactites form and

gold grows before our eyes. Deeper, beyond the reach of any mine, any drill, we find wonders beyond imagination: towering molten metal

tornadoes, forests of solid iron crystals, until we reach the strangest, least understood place on the planet – the core.