For a chosen few, it s a dream job, a great responsibility, a life insane.For several generations, the magazine National Geographic set out to conquer the beauty, diversity and mysteries of our planet.[/center]

Off the southern coast of Africa lies an underwater metropolis like none other on the planet: Aliwal Shoal. A fossilised dune of towering pinnacles and deep caves hidden five kilometres out to sea, Aliwal Shoal is a place where sharks flock and fish walk on the bottom of the ocean.

On legendary Easter Island, a team of National Geographic explorers and scientists undertakes a groundbreaking expedition: to attempt a first-ever mapping of the vast cave system beneath this enigmatic isle. We ride along as the team rappels down sheer cliffs, crawls through narrow labyrinths, and even dons SCUBA gear to complete their task. Deep beneath the earth, in caverns that have been forgotten for centuries, these adventurers discover human remains and telltale artifacts. Together, these finds reveal an astonishing history that is brought to life in startling re-enactments. It is a tale of ingenious achievement, environmental catastrophe, and brutal social breakdown one that remains a haunting lesson for all of us, similarly trapped on an island planet of our own.

It is one of the most ambitious construction projects of modern times: building the world s deepest submarine tunnel beneath one of the busiest shipping lanes on the planet, just 12 miles north of one of the most active fault lines today.

NGC visualizes in spectacular HD the devastating ecological impact each single degree increase in temperature could have on our planet over the next century.

Humans may someday develop the technology to colonize other planets. Is it possible to make other planetary environments more like our own? Travel our solar system to see what it would take to live on a neighboring planet.

Volcanic eruptions aren t unique to Earth they are common throughout the solar system. Eruptions are capable of both destruction and creation, and we ll see their astonishing effects on humans and entire galaxies. We ll head to the big island of Hawaii to get up close and personal with one of the most active lava fields on the planet. Is there a way to predict when the next catastrophic eruption might occur?

In the 2004 eco-thriller The Day After Tomorrow, director Roland Emmerich dramatized the potential consequences of accelerated global warming. By combining stock footage with computer-generated imagery, the National Geographic special Six Degrees Could Change the World serves as a sort of nonfiction counterpoint. As NASA climate scientist James Hansen cautions, even two degrees Celsius represents a tipping point (from which there is no return). Based on Mark Lynas’s Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet and narrated by Alec Baldwin, the program roams from the bushfire-ravaged suburbs of Southern Australia to the drought-stricken farmlands of Nebraska to the rapidly melting glaciers of Greenland. In the process, aerospace engineers, marine biologists, and ordinary citizens share their experiences and predictions.