英语听力材料“探索欧洲”

Hints:EuropeBritainFranceGermanyPoland UkraineCarboniferousfuelthe Industrial Revolutionpowerhouse

It took a ten-meter layer of fallen rain forest to make just a one-meter seam of coal. When you consider the depth of all the seams in all the coalfields worked in Europe, from Britain through to northern France and Germany, Poland and Ukraine, the immense scale of Carboniferous forests becomes clear.

Coal fuelled one of the greatest transformations that Europe has ever seen. Its presence all across the continent was a vital component in making Europe the cradle of the Industrial Revolution and ultimately turned it into the economic powerhouse it is today. The ancient past can directly shape the present. Europe is now the most urbanized and industrialized continent on the globe, largely thanks to its position on the equator 300 million years ago.