The Geological Literature and Scholarly Communication

“The library habit is utterly essential to sound scientific research . . .  and geologists who do not know how to prepare acceptable reports are not quite ready for professional status.  [Students should] know how to use geologic literature as an instrument of research.”
        - From Training Geologists: A United States Geological Survey Viewpoint, 1950.

Introduction
Problems in Accessing the Geological Literature
How Geologists Use the Library
The Literature of Geology
Geology Societies
Most Frequently Cited Geology Journals
Core Journals for Petrology
Review Journals for Earth Science
USGS Publications
Research Databases for Geologists
Searchable Online Journal Collections for Geology
Browsing for Information

Introduction

New scientific information, however original and earthshaking, does not become scientific knowledge until it has been communicated, criticized, verified, and remains unfalsified, by other scientists in the same field. The scholarly communication system is the instrument by which the results of individual, private research projects are transformed into scientific knowledge

The literature of geology is more difficult than that of many other subjects because of the confusing complexity of much of its source material.                      

Problems with access in geology stem from:

• The broad scope of the fields within the geosciences
  • Information comes from many different subject areas
    • Georef – general
    • Chem. Abstracts – geochemist
    • Biological Abstracts - paleontologist
• The great variety of formats that must be used

•  The multitude of relevant information sources
  • Federal – State – Regional – Local agencies – Societies
  • Depends on local publications for detailed descriptions and interpretations more than other scientists
• The value of the older literature which must continue to be accessed and retrieved
  • Oldest half life of any science, much does not become obsolete
  • Changing titles, different types of access, variable coverage
• Many important writings in geology are contained in unbound or paper bound booklets, pamphlets, and bulletins issued by widely scattered public agencies
• Maps present their own difficulties
• Literature of geology is international                                              

1.  To find a single definition, value or property

• Uses specialized dictionaries, handbooks, tables

Reads authoritative and scholarly overviews of topics in encyclopedias or review articles

Develops list of keywords or subjects to search 

• Follows cited references
• Searches in library catalogs and research databases (e.g. Georef)

• Searches GeoRef

• To find out who has cited a particular piece of published research, scientists consult science citation indexes and librarians.

• Searches in library catalogs and research databases (e.g. GeoRef)
• Searches Marcive , the online catalog of government documents

• Searches in library catalogs and GeoRef
• Searches Marcive

• Searches in library catalogs and union lists
• Downloads full text from an online source
• Places a request with a librarian for an Interlibrary Loan.

• Problems arise from journal abbreviations, incomplete author names, incorrect titles, and incomplete citations.  Consults a reference librarian for assistance.

• Primary publications contain the work of contemporary scholars who are contributing to the advancement of their subject.
• Secondary resources are not original in content yet provide a vital service.  These are mainly indexes, abstracts, monographic series of reviews and advances, textbooks, and encyclopedias, dictionaries, or handbooks.
• Monographs (Books or in series) are selective summaries that rarely contain the latest information in a field.  They can be several years behind current practice at publication.
• Serials (or Periodicals or Journals) are publications that appear in a continuing series of issues, usually at regular intervals, under the same distinctive title.  Periodicals or Journals contain the latest work in a given field and cover topics too small to warrant book treatment.  Periodicals are the outgrowth of personal correspondence between scientists and of the assembled minutes or records of scientific meetings.  Most scholarly periodicals are published by professional societies; others are sponsored by educational institutions or public agencies or are published by private persons and companies either as a business enterprise for profit or as a house organ for the purpose of institutional advertising.
• Reviews or Review Articles synthesize important research into a connected account of scientific progress.  They assist the geologist to assimilate current material relevant to her subject field.  Specialized reviewing series often have the words “Advances”, “Progress”, or “Annual Review” leading their titles.  Two important journals containing review articles are Earth Science Reviews and Reviews of Geophysics. 
• Letters Journals rapidly publish very brief reports of outstanding and essentially revolutionary new discoveries. They also serve as a medium for the publication of short communications, not necessarily of great significance, but sufficiently self-contained to be useful to specialists in that field.  There is a pressure to get into print quickly and sometimes clarity and completeness of proof suffer in these articles.
• Conference Papers/Proceedings are shortened, sometimes inferior, versions of work that is about to be or has been published elsewhere. They also may contain invited papers which typically give a review of the current situation but can be biased by the personal opinion of the speaker. 
• Dissertations/Theses are usually quite long works describing in great detail a research project carried out by the author as a requirement for the Ph.D. or Masters degree. 
• Indexes and Abstracts are research databases that allow the geologist to find articles or books of interest that would otherwise remain unknown to him.  Indexing and abstracting services provide access to the bibliographic information and abstracts of papers and other forms of literature through relational databases. 
• Reports are sometimes called Ephemera or Grey literature. Ephemera or Grey literature is any material not available through regular channels.  Examples include report literature, technical notes and specifications, some conference proceedings and preprints, translations, official publications, supplementary publications and data, trade literature, etc.  Grey literature may have poor print quality and layouts, have missing or incomplete bibliographic information, and are published in limited print runs.
• Government Documents are of critical significance to the geologist.  A government document is any publication printed at government expense or published by authority of Congress or any government publication office.  The USGS was created by an act of Congress in 1879 in order to classify the public lands and examine the geologic structure, mineral resources, and products of the national domain.  Each state also has its own geological survey.      back

Societies play a significant role in scholarly communication.  Each field or subfield in a discipline will organize into membership-based societies.  These societies take it upon themselves to serve the scholarly needs of the field by developing standards, inculcating ethical conduct, publishing the scholarly output of the members, and upholding quality through the process of peer review.  During peer review, papers considered for publication in scholarly journals are “refereed or reviewed” by at least two anonymous peers prior to acceptance for publication. 

American Geological Institute (AGI)  was founded in 1948 as a non-profit federation of 34 geoscientific and professional associations representing more than 100,000 geoscientists.  Its Geographic Information Service produces GeoRef.  Member organizations include:

 American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
 American Geophysical Union (AGU)
 Geological Society of America
 Mineralogical Society of America
 Society for Mining, Metallurgy, and Exploration
 The Society for Organic Petrology                                            

Journal of Sedimentary Research A. & B.
Journal of Metamorphic Geology
Geology
Journal of Geology
Sedimentology
Ore Geology
Palaios                                                                                

Journal of Petrology, 1960 -
Contributions to Mineralogy and Petrology, 1966 - 
Lithos, 1968 - 
Journal of Metamorphic Geology, 1983 - 
Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 1966 -
Journal of Geophysical Research, 1896 -                                 

Earth Science Reviews
Physics and Chemistry of the Earth
Reviews of Geophysics 
Reviews of Geophysics and Space Physics                             

I 19:1 Annual Reports

I 19:2 General Publications
Publications of a miscellaneous nature
Fact Sheets disseminate timely information on scientific and technical programs 

I 19:3 Bulletins, 1883 – 
Bulletins contain significant data and interpretations that are of lasting scientific  interest but are generally more limited in scope or geographic coverage than professional  papers. They include the results of resource studies and of geologic and topographic investigations, as well as collections of short papers related to a specific topic.  A series called “Contributions to Economic Geology” is included in this heading.

I 19:4 Circulars, 1933 – 
Circulars present technical or non-technical information of wide popular interest in a format designed for distribution at no cost to the public. They are published to disseminate administrative information or important scientific information of an ephemeral nature.

I 19:13 Water Supply Papers, 1896 – 
Water-Supply Papers are comprehensive reports that present significant interpretive  results of hydrologic investigations of wide interest to professional geologists,  hydrologists, and engineers. The series covers investigations in all phases of  hydrology, including hydrogeology, availability of water, quality of water, and use of water.  Two sub-series are included, “Contributions to Hydrology of the  United States” and “Surface Water Supply of the United States.”  The later covers  different geographic sections; it also includes occasional miscellaneous papers on surface  or underground water supplies of certain localities.

I 19:14 List of publication of the USGS

I 19:16 Professional Papers, 1902 – 
Professional Papers are comprehensive scientific reports of  wide and lasting interest and  importance to professional scientists and engineers.  Included are reports on the results of  resource studies, and of topographic, hydrologic, and geologic investigations. They also  include collections of related papers addressing different aspects of a single scientific  topic.  One subseries “Shorter Contributions to general Geology” is included as well as  miscellaneous scientific papers on physiography, petrography, mineralogy, paleontology,  economic geology, etc.

I 19:76 Books and Open File Reports
 Open-file reports include unpublished manuscript reports, maps, and other  materials that are made available for public consultation at depositories. They are a  nonpermanent form of publication that may be cited in other publications as sources of  information.

I 19:165 Mineral resources 1882 - 
 Statistics of production by calendar year and matter relating to technology and resources  published by the U.S. Bureau of Mines.                                                                                                      

GeoRef, 1785 - 
GeoRef provides access to the geoscience literature of the world. The database indexes geoscience journal articles, books, maps, conference papers, reports, and theses. The GeoRef database covers the geology of North America from 1785 to the present and the geology of the rest of the world from 1933 to the present. The database includes  references to all publications of the U.S. Geological Survey.

INSPEC, 1969 –
While primarily a database for physics, it has significant coverage in geophysics. More than 4,000 international scientific and technical journals, 2,000 conference proceedings, and numerous books, reports and dissertations are scanned each year by INSPEC for inclusion in the database.  It currently contains over 7 million records and adds 350,000 records per year.
All records include an English language title and abstract.  Links to full text are provided when available. 

SciFinder Scholar, 1907 – 
SciFinder Scholar is the online equivalent of the print Chemical Abstracts.  It also includes the Medline database and gives access to both US and international patents.  While chemical Abstracts is primarily known as tool for chemists, there is significant coverage in other disciplines.  23% of the 19 million references in SciFinder relate directly to physics.  Links to the full text are provided when available.

Related Databases for Geology
The following databases will contain overlap information for physics.  Applied Science and Technology and Index to Journal Articles index more lower-level interdisciplinary journals than the specialized journals indexed by INSPEC.  Biological Abstracts will contain information in biophysics and MathSciNet will contain information in computers and computer technology.
              Applied Science and Technology, 1983 - 
              Biological Abstracts, 1980 -
              Index to Journal Articles, 1984 – 
              MarciveWeb Docs, 1976 -                                                                                                

OhioLINK Electronic Journal Center
This collection gives full text access to journals published by certain publishers.  Notable for geology is the inclusion of the journals published by Elsevier.  There are 100 journals covering all aspects of geology in this collection.  These holdings go back an average of five years and are searchable by keyword in any field and by browsing Tables of Contents.

JStor
JStor provides complete backfiles of core scholarly journals, many of which date from 1800s.  Important titles for Geologist include Philosophical Transactions, Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and Science.                                                                           

General subjects, definitions, concepts?
    Try Encyclopedias, textbooks, dictionaries

Geographic areas, geologic formations?
    Try Guidebooks, maps, dissertations, journals, government publications

Mineral specimens, fossils?
    Try Field guides to rocks or fossils, reference books

Current developments in geology?
        Try Journals, geological society or conference publications (newsletters, 
        web pages, etc.)

In-depth subject information?
       Try Journals, professional monographs, government documents

Browsing Locations on Library Shelves