Wild Europe - Genesis 肇始之初- 8
时间：2018-12-07 作者：英语课 分类：欧洲自然写真
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 1. No scavengers could survive in these toxic 2 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 3, 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 4 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 5 plankton 6, microscopic 7 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 8 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 9 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
- The lagoon was pullulated with tropical fish.那个咸水湖聚满了热带鱼。
- This area isolates a restricted lagoon environment.将这一地区隔离起来使形成一个封闭的泻湖环境。
- The factory had accidentally released a quantity of toxic waste into the sea.这家工厂意外泄漏大量有毒废物到海中。
- There is a risk that toxic chemicals might be blasted into the atmosphere.爆炸后有毒化学物质可能会进入大气层。
- The frog is not a true reptile.青蛙并非真正的爬行动物。
- So you should not be surprised to see someone keep a reptile as a pet.所以，你不必惊奇有人养了一只爬行动物作为宠物。
- Life has its own evolutionary process.生命有其自身的进化过程。
- These are fascinating questions to be resolved by the evolutionary studies of plants.这些十分吸引人的问题将在研究植物进化过程中得以解决。
- Marine creatures are those which live in the sea. 海洋生物是生存在海里的生物。
- When the war broke out,he volunteered for the Marine Corps.战争爆发时，他自愿参加了海军陆战队。
- Plankton is at the bottom of the marine food chain.浮游生物处于海洋食物链的最底层。
- The plankton in the sea feeds many kinds of animals. 海的浮游生物成为很多种动物的食物。
- It's impossible to read his microscopic handwriting.不可能看清他那极小的书写字迹。
- A plant's lungs are the microscopic pores in its leaves.植物的肺就是其叶片上微细的气孔。