Britannica Educational Publishing 
Investigating the History of Earth [PDF ebook] 

It may be hard to believe that the Earth, with all the complexity and biodiversity we observe today, originated in a cloud of gas and dust. Yet much of the plant and animal life that seems so common now evolved relatively recently on the timeline of Earth’s long history. The Earth’s remarkable origins are chronicled in this insightful volume, which also examines the prehistoric organisms-from bacteria to dinosaurs-that populated the planet long before humans arrived.