Paris Basin
Sedimentary basin in FranceWikipedia
10
MENTIONS
5
EPISODES
5
PODCASTS
Search complete. 10 mentions across 5 episodes found for "Paris Basin".
Oct 19, 2026
Marie KoxGUEST
Ja.
speaker_0HOST
Dieses Pariser Becken, was sich hier hochzieht.
Marie KoxGUEST
Genau, ja.
speaker_0HOST
Und das ist für die Burgundersorten natürlich einfach 'n Traum, ne.
Stephen StearnsHOST
And if you were to ask them, "Well, where did all these species on the planet come from?" They would say they were all created just the way they look now, and they've never changed.
Stephen StearnsHOST
And if you ask them, "Have there ever been any species that went extinct?" They would say, "No, everything that was created is still alive and can be found somewhere on the planet." So when Alexander von Humboldt, who was certainly a creature of the Enlightenment, sets out to explore South America, he thinks that he might encounter some of those strange fossils that the French have been turning up in the Paris Basin on top of a tepui in Venezuela.
Stephen StearnsHOST
So he really thought that there was a lost world.
Stephen StearnsHOST
Of course, Arthur Conan Doyle later wrote a novel about that.
Stephen StearnsHOST
They knew that fossils probably represent extinct species.
Stephen StearnsHOST
That was Cuvier's contribution.
Stephen StearnsHOST
He did it for ma- mammal fossils in the Paris Basin.
Stephen StearnsHOST
Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire had had a big debate with Cuvier about homology, and that was in 1830.
speaker_0NARRATOR
And the slow withdrawal of the sea as tectonic forces raised the land left that stone exposed beneath a landscape that would, given enough time, become one of the most densely populated cities in Europe.
speaker_0NARRATOR
The same limestone formation that sits beneath Paris extends across the entire Paris Basin, a broad geological bowl, technically a sedimentary basin, that stretches hundreds of, uh, kilometers in every direction, from the chalk cliffs of the Normandy coast to the rolling hills of Burgundy, from the flatlands of Picardy to the edges of the Loire Valley.
speaker_0NARRATOR
The basin is essentially a stack of sedimentary layers, each one representing a different period of geological time.
speaker_0NARRATOR
Each one laid down under different conditions.
speaker_0NARRATOR
They are everywhere in the stone, a reminder that the rock beneath your feet was built by billions of tiny organisms living and dying in warm, clear water under a sun that rose and set forty-five million times a year, every year for millions of years.
speaker_0NARRATOR
The water that formed these sediments was shallow, rarely more than a few tens of meters deep and warm, probably between twenty-five and thirty degrees Celsius, comparable to the waters of the modern Caribbean or the Coral Sea.
speaker_0NARRATOR
The shoreline of this ancient sea shifted over time, advancing and retreating across the Paris Basin in response to changes in sea level, driven by tectonic forces and, to a lesser extent, by fluctuations in global climate.
speaker_0NARRATOR
At times, the area that would become Paris was submerged beneath open water.
Pamela NagamiNARRATOR
The valleys of the Seine and the Eure lead straight to the Ile-de-France, separated from Normandy only by those border fortresses of the Havre and the Vexin, which are the perpetual battleground of Norman history, Normandy's Alsace-Lorraine.
Pamela NagamiNARRATOR
Within these limits lie two distinct physiographic areas, one of the lower portion of the Paris Basin, the other a western region which belongs with Brittany and the west of France.
Pamela NagamiNARRATOR
These districts are commonly distinguished as Upper and Lower Normandy, terms consecrated by long use and representing two contrasted regions and types, but there is no general agreement as to their exact limits or the limits of the region of Middle Normandy, which some have placed between them.
Pamela NagamiNARRATOR
Even the attempt to define these areas in terms of cheese as the land respectively of the creamy Neufchâtel, the resilient Pont-l'Évêque, and the flowing Camembert is defective from the point of view of geographical accuracy.
3 HRS 30 MINS LATER
Pamela NagamiNARRATOR
Where the center of the new state would lie was not a matter of accident, but was largely determined by the great lines of communication, and especially by the commercial access which runs from the Mediterranean to Flanders and the English Channel.
Pamela NagamiNARRATOR
On this line are situated the Roman capital of the Gauls, Lyon, and the modern capital, Paris.
Pamela NagamiNARRATOR
This fact, combined with the central and dominant position of the Paris Basin in relation to the great valleys of the Seine, the Loire and the Meuse, established the region about Paris, the Ile-de-France of history, as the natural center of this future nation.
Pamela NagamiNARRATOR
Such a state might grow from without toward its center, as the modern kingdom of Italy closed in on Rome.
Pamela NagamiNARRATOR
The valleys of the Seine and the Eure lead straight to the Ile-de-France, separated from Normandy only by those border fortresses of the Havre and the Vexin, which are the perpetual battleground of Norman history, Normandy's Alsace-Lorraine.
Pamela NagamiNARRATOR
Within these limits lie two distinct physiographic areas, one of the lower portion of the Paris Basin, the other a western region which belongs with Brittany and the west of France.
Pamela NagamiNARRATOR
These districts are commonly distinguished as Upper and Lower Normandy, terms consecrated by long use and representing two contrasted regions and types, but there is no general agreement as to their exact limits or the limits of the region of Middle Normandy, which some have placed between them.
Pamela NagamiNARRATOR
Even the attempt to define these areas in terms of cheese, as the land respectively of the creamy Neufchâtel, the resilient Pont-l'Évêque, and the flowing Camembert, is defective from the point of view of geographical accuracy.
3 HRS 28 MINS LATER
Pamela NagamiNARRATOR
Where the center of the new state would lie was not a matter of accident, but was largely determined by the great lines of communication, and especially by the commercial access which runs from the Mediterranean to Flanders and the English Channel.
Pamela NagamiNARRATOR
On this line are situated the Roman capital of the Gauls, Lyon, and the modern capital, Paris.
Pamela NagamiNARRATOR
This fact, combined with the central and dominant position of the Paris Basin in relation to the great valleys of the Seine, the Loire and the Meuse, established the region about Paris, the Ile-de-France of history, as the natural center of this future nation.
Pamela NagamiNARRATOR
Such a state might grow from without toward its center as the modern kingdom of Italy closed in on Rome, but the more natural process was from the center outward as England grew about Wessex or Brandenburg about the region of Berlin.