When our planet Earth was first forming some 4 and half billion years ago it would have appeared quite different, more of a hellish place plagued by meteorite impacts, volcanic eruptions, lightning and a torrid atmosphere.

So how was it that life managed to emerge from this chaos? this is a question which has puzzled many scientists for decades and now in this film we join mineralogist Robert Hazen as he travels around the globe. From an ancient Moroccan market to the Australian Outback, Hazen toys with the notion that possibly the rocks located beneath our feet not only played an curtal role in jump-starting life but also gave way to many hundreds of minerals we depend on today.