Reference Librarian
Q&A About Searching the Geology Literature
- Q&A About Searching the Geology LiteratureAnswers to questions submitted by students in GEOL 298: Geoscience Research Methods
Finding Articles
Geology can cover a wide range of disciplines, so you may need to search databases from multiple disciplines. Remember to click the "Find It" button to check for the full text of articles if you don't see a PDF linked, and request articles through Interlibrary Loan if we don't have access.
Geology-focused
- GeoRef This link opens in a new window
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(Searches through citations, subject indexing, and some full text)
The place to start to find Geology literature. GeoRef has articles, conference proceedings, maps, reports, and dissertations. Take a look at the thesaurus if you're having trouble finding good keywords. Covers publications from 1785 - present. - GeoScienceWorld This link opens in a new window
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(Searches through citations and the full text)
A collection of full-text articles from core geoscience journals that are indexed by GeoRef, 2000 - current. You can use a map to search for literature about a specific location, and you can narrow search results to specific geologic time periods.
Environmental Topics
- ProQuest Agricultural & Environmental Science Database This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
(Searches through citations, subject indexing, and abstracts)
This tool searches across the AGRICOLA, ESPM, and EIS databases, and it provides full-text titles from around the world. It includes scholarly journals, trade and industry journals, magazines, technical reports, conference proceedings, government publications, and more. Covers 1960-current. - AGRICOLA This link opens in a new window
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(Searches through citations, subject indexing, and abstracts)
Find article information about all aspects of agricultural research, 1970-current. - ASFA: Aquatic Sciences and Fisheries Abstracts This link opens in a new window
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(Searches through citations, subject indexing, and some full text)
Find basic and applied research on aquatic organisms, 1971 - current.
Physics / Engineering
- INSPEC This link opens in a new window
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INSPEC is the main database for physics and engineering.
Chemistry
- SciFinder-n This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
(Searches through citations and the full text)
The new, updated version of SciFinder Scholar. Find chemical and related scientific information. FIRST TIME USERS must register to search this database here.
General Science
- Web of Science This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
(Searches through citations, subject indexing, and some full text)
A massive index of literature from the sciences, social sciences, and humanities. Also offers cited reference searching to see who has cited a particular document. 1898 - current.
Note: To do cited reference searching, click on "cited reference search," fill in an author's last name and publication date, figure out which of the resulting list of citations match the work you're looking for, and then "finish search" to see who has cited that work. - ScienceDirect This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
(Searches through citations and the full text)
A core collection of full text articles in the sciences and social sciences, as well as reference works, handbooks and book series. Covers 1997 - current.
