They make perfect roof tiles, but these tiles occasionally reveal something extraordinary. Perfect snapshots from 115 million years ago, back then, Solnhofen was part of a very still and salty tropical lagoon. No scavengers could survive in these toxic waters, but anything that died was left undisturbed.

One casualty in particular has made Solnhofen world famous--archaeopteryx. Although it had the head and pelvis of a reptile, the long forelimbs suggest something altogether different. They're covered in feathers. This was part reptile, part bird. Archaeopteryx marks one of the major turning points in evolutionary history. From these beginnings, emerged the 9000 species of birds that fill the skies today.

The next great event that Europe experienced took place a hundred million years ago. The clues lie hidden in the famous chalk cliffs of Southern England. Chalk is composed of the shells and skeletons of ancient marine plankton, microscopic creatures, trillions and trillions of them.

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words and expressions

snapshot: (n.) A photograph taken with a small hand-held camera. 快照

lagoon: (n.) A shallow body of water, especially one separated from a sea by sandbars or coral reefs. 环礁湖

archaeopteryx: (n.) An extinct primitive bird (genus Archaeopteryx) of the Jurassic period, having lizardlike characteristics, such as teeth and a long, bony tail. It may represent a transitional form between reptiles and birds. 始祖鸟

pelvis: (n.) A basin-shaped structure of the vertebrate skeleton, composed of the innominate bones on the sides, the pubis in front, and the sacrum and coccyx behind, that rests on the lower limbs and supports the spinal co