Comprehensive list of "earth shattering" theories in fundamental physics of the last 50 years, discovery of the standard model as a gauge theory, first discussion of gauge theories in the 20ies, completion with observation of the Higgs boson in 2012, dark matter, first discussed by Zwicky in the 1920ies, since WMAP (~2000) a well established observation. Dark Energy, first discussed by Einstein in the twenties (actually I think a decade earlier) and observed by the High-Z-Supernova-Project in 1998. And neutrino mass, discussed as a curiosity for a long time and observed first in the 60ies and confirmed in 2001.

So anybody who uses the description "earth shattering" more than once a decade is probably overselling the importance of individual papers.