Title: Four Revolutions in the Earth Sciences. Format: Hardback. The stories behind these four discoveries reflect more than the fascinating push and pull of scientific work. For example, counter to common sense, the Earth and the solar system are older than all of human existence; the interactions among the moving plates and the continents they carry account for nearly all of the Earth’s surface features; and nearly every important feature of our solar system results from the chance collision of objects in space.