For thousands of years, people have been trying to solve the riddle of our planet¹s composition and its position in the Universe. But only twentieth-century research revealed how Earth emerged out of the solar nebula, and what it is made of. In The Little Book of Planet Earth, Rolf Meissner gives us an insight into different aspects of earth sciences, and answers questions such as:

- How was our Solar System formed and, with it, our planet?

- How does our planet¹s magnetic field work?

- What is the role of plate tectonics, and why does it make Earth such a special planet?

- How did life on Earth evolve?

- Which techniques do scientists have to determine the age of rocks and fossils?

- What seismological methods are applied for the exploration of the Earth¹s interior?

- What natural resources do we have, and are they infinite?

Meteorologist and geophysicist Rolf Meissner lectured at the Universities of Frankfurt and Mainz (Germany) and was a visiting researcher at the University of Hawaii. He directed the Institute of Geophysics at the Christian Albrechts University in Kiel, Germany, for 25 years. Until his retirement in 1996, his areas of expertise were the structure and evolution of the Earth's crust, applied geophysics, and comparative planetology.