Geosciences: Recommended

The Glossary is searchable using terms, words within terms or definitions, categories and Spanish-language equivalents. Boolean operators (and/or/not) are available for each search field. Search fields may also be combined or may be browsed using a pop-up word wheel.

The online Glossary includes several features not available in the print version:

Display option for images of minerals, rocks, fossils and landforms. These images are drawn from the Earth Science World Image Bank maintained by AGI.
Spanish language equivalents for many entries in the online Glossary. Translated by geoscientists whose native language is Spanish, the Spanish entries can be browsed or searched directly.
Hyperlinks to related or similar terms. Synonyms or antonyms and glossary terms appearing as parts of other term definitions are frequently hyperlinked to allow quick reference.

All terms in the Glossary are assigned to general discipline categories. Terms can be restricted to a particular category or all terms in a category can be browsed.

The GeoRef database includes references to all publications of the U.S. Geological Survey. Masters' theses and doctoral dissertations from US and Canadian universities are also covered.

To maintain the database, GeoRef editor/indexers regularly scan more than 3,500 journals in 40 languages as well as new books, maps, and reports. They record the bibliographic data for each document and assign index terms to describe it. Each month between 4,000 and 7,000 new references are added to the database.

ProQuest Deep Indexing: Earth Sciences supplements GeoRef with access to deep indexing for tables, figures, graphs, charts and other illustrations from the scholarly research and technical literature for selected records. Records from the database appear with searches of GeoRef to provide an additional path for discovery.