Planet Belgium: narrating the geological odyssey of a country through multimedia storytelling

Belgium's compact territory contains an exceptionally rich geological record. Through repeated collisions and tectonic upheavals during our long journey from the southern hemisphere, layers from nearly every period of the past half billion years are exposed at the surface. The Planet Belgium project explores this remarkable geological heritage through a multimedia approach combining five immersive podcast episodes, five longread articles in popular science media, and five educational posters. Longreads are in Dutch, French and English.

In each episode and article, we venture into the field with Belgian experts and citizen scientists. Step by step, we reconstruct the sequential building of Belgium's subsurface through deep time. The project aims to convey a sense of wonder about geology and encourage audiences to see "boring" stones with new eyes.

Featured geological elements include Belgian whetstones and cobblestones, the famous red and black Belgian marble, bluestone, coal - our former "black gold" - and chalk, among others. The spectacular fossil collections at the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences in Brussels, including the world-famous Bernissart Iguanodons, tell the evolutionary history of life on Earth from the Cambrian up until the last Ice Age, bringing these ancient worlds to life for modern audiences.

This presentation (oral or in a poster session) will discuss the strategies employed to make deep time accessible and engaging across multiple formats (podcast, ‘scrollitelling’, posters, teaser videos), the challenges of translating expert knowledge for public audiences, and the role of aesthetic design in science communication. I will share lessons learned and evaluate the project's success.

The first episode is published here: https://www.naturalsciences.be/r/planetbelgium
Three episodes will be online at the time of the conference.