About the book: 1992 / Without knowing the past, it is impossible to predict the future. This thesis is quite applicable to our planet. The onset of climate change, in particular global warming, is forcing scientists to look more closely at the rock record of the Earth, to read the very ancient and relatively recently written pages of nature. This book tells about the world of stone that surrounds us, about the attitude of man towards it at different stages of the development of civilization, about amulets and medicine stones, about sedimentary rocks that store the richest information about the past of our planet. It also recreates a number of striking episodes from the complex and contradictory geological history of our common home - the Earth. The upper, sedimentary shell of the Earth is not only the focus of various minerals, but also a stone chronicle, by reading which we can understand the distant past of our planet and predict it future. Popular science publication. For a wide range of readers interested in the history of our planet.