Guide to Research in Geology

Modern geologists explore a variety of questions that relate to the Earth, including its age and formative history, its dynamic interior and exterior, and the evolutionary history of its biota. Students who take courses in the Geology Department are regularly encouraged to conduct independent research on geological topics, and they are fortunate to have a wide and diverse selection of research materials at their disposal. This Guide to Research in Geology is designed to provide both students and professionals with a map of the many avenues of information that are currently available. Print, electronic, and web resources for all students of the Earth are organized below in a way that will greatly facilitate research efforts. An introduction to the most widely-used database, GeoRef, is also provided.

The resources listed below are available:

• at the Macalester College DeWitt Wallace Library;
• online through Macalester Library subscriptions; or
• freely available on the Internet.

To find books and other materials, use the CLICnet catalog. CLICnet uses Library of Congress subject headings, a controlled vocabulary which provides subject access. Sample subject terms include:

The Library uses Library of Congress call numbers to identify and organize materials:

Resources in this guide are organized into six sections: general geology; four sections for specific areas within geology; and a final section giving a brief overview and search tips for the GeoRef database.

Reference sources provide quick overviews, answers to "factual" questions, and refer to other sources.
Databases, indexes, and abstracts provide citations to the journal literature.
Web sites can contain a wealth of information, but be sure to critically evaluate the content of sites for accuracy, currency, authority and purpose.

I. General Geology
Reference | USGS Publications | Maps and Atlases | Databases, Indexes, and Abstracts | Journals |
Internet Resources | Research Groups | Professional Organizations | Geology Collections

II. Geochemistry, Petrology, Mineralogy
Reference | Databases, Indexes, and Abstracts | Journals | Internet Resources | Professional Organizations |

III. Geophysics, Structural Geology, Tectonics
Reference | Databases, Indexes, and Abstracts | Journals | Internet Resources | Professional Organizations |

IV. Paleontology, Sedimentology, Stratigraphy
Reference | Maps and Atlases | Journals | Internet Resources | Professional Organizations |

V. Geomorphology, Environmental Geology
Databases, Indexes, and Abstracts | Journals | Internet Resources |

VI. GeoRef
GeoRef Search Tips

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I. General Geology

• Reference

  RESEARCH GUIDES AND BIBLIOGRAPHIES

Geologic Reference Sources: A Subject and Regional Bibliography of Publications and Maps in the Geological Sciences. Dederick C. Ward, Marjorie W. Wheeler, and Robert A. Bier, Jr. Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1981.
REF QE26.2 W35 1981

Information Sources in the Earth Sciences. David N. Wood, Joan E. Hardy, and Anthony P. Harvey, eds. London; New York: Bowker-Saur, 1989.
REF QE26.2 .I64 1989

Science and Engineering Literature: A Guide to Reference Sources, 3rd ed. H. Robert Malinowsky and Jeanne M. Richardson. Littleton, Colo.: Libraries Unlimited, 1980.
Q158.5 M28 1980

DICTIONARIES AND ENCYCLOPEDIAS

Dictionary of Geological Terms, 3rd ed. Robert L. Bates and Julia A. Jackson, eds. Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor Press/Doubleday, 1984.
REF QE5.D55 1984

The Encyclopedia of Field and General Geology. Charles W. Finkl, ed. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, c1988.
REF QE5.E515 1988

Glossary of Geology, 3rd ed. Robert L. Bates and Julia A. Jackson, eds. Alexandria, Va.: American Geological Institute, 1987.
REF QE5.B38 1987

Illustrated Glossary of Geologic Terms
Glossary of geologic terms based on the glossary in Earth: An Introduction to Geologic Change by S. Judson and S.M. Richardson (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1995) and definitions given in R.L. Bates and J.A. Jackson (eds.) Glossary of Geology, 3rd ed. (American Geological Institute, Alexandria, Virginia, 1987).

Macmillan Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences. E. Julius Dasch, ed. New York, NY: Macmillan Reference USA, 1996.
REF QE5 .E5137 1996 v. 1, 2

Multilingual Thesaurus of Geosciences. G.N. Rassam, J. Gravesteijn, and R. Potenza, eds. New York: Pergamon Press, 1988.
REF QE7 .M84 1988

Russian-English Dictionary of Geological Terms. Telberg, V.G. New York: Telberg Book Corp., 1964.
REF QE5 .T45

MISCELLANEOUS

AGI Data Sheets: For Geology in the Field, Laboratory, and Office. R.V. Dietrich, J.T. Dutro, Jr., and R.M. Foose. Falls Church, VA: American Geological Institute, 1982.
REF QE52 .A36 1982

 

• United States Geological Survey Publications

Publications of the Geological Survey. United States Department of the Interior, Geological Survey. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office. Monthly. Annual & Multi-year Cumulations.
1879-1961: REF QE75 .P93 1965
1962-1970: REF QE75 .P932 1972
1962-1980 (scattered holdings): REF QE75 .P94

Publications of the U.S. Geological Survey
Searchable database that is a subset of the GeoRef database, providing full citations with GeoRef IDs for USGS publications.

USGS Books and Other Publications
Online USGS books, reports, and pamphlets.

 

• Maps and Atlases

MINNESOTA AND U.S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY MAPS

Minnesota Geological Survey Current and Other Publications
Minnesota Geological Survey Maps and USGS topographic maps of Minnesota.

National Geologic Map Database
Catalog of print and digital maps and related data for: geology, hazards, earth resources, geophysics, geochemistry, geochronology, paleontology, and marine geology.

Terraserver
Free public access to maps and aerial photographs of the United States, supplied by USGS and operated by Microsoft.

TopoZone
USGS interactive digital topographic maps (1:100,000, 1:63,360, 1:25,000, and 1:24,000 scale) for the entire United States.

USGS Maps
USGS geologic and thematic (not topographic) maps and map data.

ATLASES

Color Landform Atlas of the United States
Topographic, county, shaded relief, black and white shaded relief, 1895, and downloadable PostScript county maps, as well as satellite images, for each state.

The Historical Atlas of the Earth: A Visual Exploration of the Earth's Physical Past. Roger Osborne and Donald Tarling, eds. New York: H. Holt, 1996.
REF QE28.3 .H57 1996

National Atlas of the United States
High-quality, small-scale maps; online interactive and dynamic multimedia maps; and national geospatial and geostatistical data sets.

GEOGRAPHIC NAMES INFORMATION SYSTEMS AND LEXICONS

Geographic Names Information System (USGS)
Federally recognized names (referenced by State, county, and geographic coordinates) of almost 2 million physical and cultural geographic features in the United States.

GEOLEX: Geologic Names Lexicon
A search tool for lithologic and geochronologic unit names within the National Geologic Map Database.

Lexicon of Geologic Names of the United States for 19--. U.S. Geological Survey. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office.
1905-1937: REF QE7 .W55 1938 pt. 1, 2
1936-1975 (5 separate volumes): REF QE7 .K4
(also SEE Geologic Names Lexicon online)

MISCELLANEOUS

The National Cooperative Geologic Mapping Program (NCGMP)
Comprised of FEDMAP, STATEMAP, and EDMAP, NCGMP was established to implement and coordinate expanded geologic mapping by the USGS, State geological surveys, and universities.

 

• Databases, Indexes, and Abstracts

PRINT

GeoRef Thesaurus and Guide to Indexing, 5th ed. Ruth H. Shimomura, ed. Alexandria, Va.: American Geological Institute, c1989.
REF QE7 .G46 1989

Union List of Geologic Field Trip Guidebooks of North America. The Geoscience Information Society Guidebooks Committee. Alexandria, Va.: American Geological Institute, in cooperation with the Geoscience Information Society, c1996.
REF QE71 .U56 1996
(Available online under new title Geologic Guidebooks of North America.)

ELECTRONIC (via DeWitt Wallace Library subscription)

GEOBASE (1980- ) Index to international geology, geography, and ecology literature, including books, monographs, journals, conference proceedings, and reports.

GeoRef (1785- North American; 1933- International) Indexes journals, book, maps, reports, conference proceedings, and theses in geology and earth sciences. Cambridge Scientific Abstracts.

Science Citation Index Expanded (1990 -) Multidisciplinary database of science journal literature. Contains searchable author abstracts and includes all cited references. ISI/Web of Science.

Geosciences Indexes, Abstracts, Bibliographies, and Table of Contents Services
Links to 12 government, academic, and professional websites with searchable databases, indexes, bibliographies, abstracts, and tables of contents.

 

• Journals

PRINT (found in the DeWitt Wallace Library)

American Journal of Science
Earth in Space
Earth Science Reviews
Economic Geology and the Bulletin of the Society of Economic Geologists
Geological Society of America Bulletin
Geology
Geotimes
Journal of Geology (also available online)
Journal of Geoscience Education

ELECTRONIC (via DeWitt Wallace Library subscription)

Current Contents: Physical, Chemical and Earth Sciences
Journal of Geology (also available at Macalester in print)
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series A: Mathematical and Physical Sciences
Proceedings of the National Academy of Science of the United States of America (Vols. 1-96, 1915-1999 through JSTOR)
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (Vol. 87, 1990 to present on journal website)
Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series A: Mathematical and Physical Sciences

ONLINE (freely available on the Internet)

G3: Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems
Electronic journal published by the American Geophysical Union and the Geochemical Society.

 

• Internet Resources

Earth Observatory
NASA's site for new satellite imagery and scientific information about Earth, focusing on climate and environmental change.

Earth/Geoscience Information on the WWW
Extensive list of links to geology resources compiled by the Illinois State Geological Survey Library.

Environmental Services Data Directory (NOAA)
Publicly available environmental data, including descriptions related to climatology, meteorology, ecology, pollution, geology, oceanography, and remote sensing satellites.

PSIgate (Physical Science Information Gateway) Earth Sciences Gateway
A web portal to relevant, high quality Internet resources in various areas of the earth sciences.

USGS Geology
A web portal for United States Geological Survey geology.

GEOLOGIC TIME SCALES

University of California, Berkeley, Museum of Paleontology Time Machine

USGS Geologic Time Scale

 

• Research Groups, Institutes, and Surveys

The Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University

Minnesota Geological Survey

(for other State Geological Surveys SEE Association of American State Geologists)

United States Geological Survey

 

• Professional Organizations

American Geological Institute

Association for Women Geoscientists

Association of American State Geologists

Geological Society of America

Geoscience Information Society

 

• Geology Collections

Scripps Institution of Oceanography

Smithsonian Institution Department of Mineral Sciences Collections

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II. Geochemistry, Petrology, Mineralogy

• Reference

DICTIONARIES AND ENCYCLOPEDIAS

Encyclopedia of Geochemistry. C.P. Marshall and R.W. Fairbridge, eds. Dordrecht; Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1999.
REF QE515 .E48 1999

The Encyclopedia of Igneous and Metamorphic Petrology. D.R. Bowes, ed. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1989.
REF QE461 .E56 1990

The Encyclopedia of Mineralogy. Keith Frye, ed. Stroudsburg, Pa.: Hutchinson Ross Pub. Co., 1981.
REF QE355 E49

International Tables for Crystallography. Theo Hahn, ed. Dordrecht; Boston: Published for the International Union of Crystallography by Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1995.
REF QD908 .I56 1995

MISCELLANEOUS

A Field Guide To Rocks And Minerals. Frederick H. Pough. Boston: Houghton-Mifflin Trade and Reference, 1996.
Available online via netLibrary.

 

• Databases, Indexes, and Abstracts

  PRINT

Mineralogical Abstracts. London: Mineralogical Society of Great Britain and Mineralogical Society of America.
v.16:5-25, 32- (1964:3-1974,1981- )
REF QE351 .M35

 

• Journals

  PRINT (found in the DeWitt Wallace Library)

AAPG Bulletin
American Mineralogist
Journal of Petrology (also available online)

ELECTRONIC (via DeWitt Wallace Library subscription)

Journal of Petrology (also available in print)

ONLINE (freely available on the Internet)

Geological Materials Research: The Electronic Journal of the Mineralogical Society of America
A refereed, electronic journal, publishing original research with an emphasis on petrology, geochemistry, mineralogy, mineral physics, crystallography, and related fields.

 

• Internet Resources

ANSMET
The Antarctic Search for Meteorites Program.

Geochemistry on the World Wide Web
A collection of geochemistry links hosted by the Department of Geological Sciences at Cornell.

GEOROC
Published chemical and isotopic data as well as "metadata" for rocks, minerals and melt/fluid inclusions. Currently covers igneous rocks from island arcs, oceanic islands, and large igneous provinces.

Minerals Yearbook (USGS)
Annual publication of the USGS that contains statistical data on materials and minerals and includes information on economic and technical trends and developments in the U.S. and foreign countries.

Mineral Resources Program (USGS)
Includes links to online publications and data; statistics and information; mapping, etc.

Paleoclimatology Program (NOAA)
A Web portal for paleoclimatic data, research, and education.

Petrological Database of the Ocean Floor
"Ultimate goal is to provide a robust, complete reference data library for the petrology and whole earth science communities." Also includes links to solid Earth chemistry and thermodynamic databases.

Petrology of Sedimentary Rocks by Robert L. Folk (out-of-print but available online through Austin Walter Geology Library, University of Texas).

 

• Professional Groups and Organizations

American Association of Petroleum Geologists

American Meteorological Society

American Petroleum Institute

Geochemical Society

Mineralogical Society of America

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III. Geophysics, Structural Geology, Tectonics

• Reference

  DICTIONARIES AND ENCYCLOPEDIAS

Encyclopedia of Volcanoes. Haraldur Sigurdsson, Bruce F. Houghton, [et al.], eds. San Diego: Academic Press, 2000.
REF QE522 .E53 2000

Glossary of Volcano and Related Terminology
From the USGS Cascades Volcano Observatory, Vancouver, Washington.

Volcanoes of the World: A Regional Directory, Gazetteer, and Chronology of Volcanism During the Last 10,000 Years, 2nd ed. Tom Simkin and Lee Siebert. Tucson, Ariz.: Geoscience Press, 1994.
REF QE522 .V92 1994

 

• Databases, Indexes, and Abstracts

Caltech Seismological Laboratory Preprints Collection
Online database of academic preprints (most full text) searchable by title, abstract, publication, date of submission, or author fields.

NASA Astrophysics Data System Abstract Service—Physics and Geophysics
Article and monograph abstracts from all the major journals, many minor journals, conference proceedings, several Observatory reports and newsletters, many NASA reports, and PhD theses. The physics and geophysics database contains over 1,140,000 records.

 

• Journals

PRINT (found in the DeWitt Wallace Library)

Journal of Structural Geology

 

• Internet Resources

EarthScope
EarthScope is a national, multidisciplinary initiative aimed at studying and measuring how the North American continent is deforming in response to ongoing plate tectonic forces.

The Electronic Volcano
Links to volcano resources: maps, photographs, texts, journal lists, etc. Also links to resources in libraries or on other information servers.

Geologic Hazards—Earthquakes (USGS)
Includes links to the USGS Earthquake Hazards Program, the National Earthquake Information Center, National Seismic Hazard Maps.

The IRIS Consortium (Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology)
Interactive information on global seismicity; includes world map with all seismic activity for previous 16 days, updated every 30 min.

National Geophysical Data Center
The National Geophysical Data Center (NGDC) is a part of the US National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), National Environmental Satellite, Data and Information Service. It is the national repository for geophysical data, currently containing more than 300 digital and analog databases.

National Information Service for Earthquake Engineering
Sponsored by the National Science Foundation and the University of California, Berkeley; includes abstracts, databases, images, links to additional resources, and more.

PaleoMap Project
Illustrates plate tectonic development of ocean basins and continents and changing distribution of land and sea. Includes sections on: earth history; climate history; 3-D topographic and bathymetric models; and plate tectonic, paleoglobe, continental drift, and paleoclimate animations.

Seismo-Surfing the Internet for Earthquake Data
Links to Internet sites where original seismic data or seismic research information is available.

SOPAC (The Scripps Orbit and Permanent Array Center)
SOPAC provides high precision geodetic and geophysical measurements using Global Positioning System (GPS) satellites, particularly for the study of earthquake hazards, tectonic plate motion, plate boundary deformation, and meteorological processes.

Structural Geology on the Web
A collection of links to assorted structural geology and tectonics Web resources.

This Dynamic Earth: The Story of Plate Tectonics online edition, version 1.08, by W. Jacquelyne Kious and Robert I. Tilling.
Provides an introduction to plate tectonics.

USARC (United States Antarctic Resource Center)
The U.S. Antarctic Resource Center at the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), Reston,Va., maintains the Nation's most comprehensive collection of Antarctic maps, charts, satellite images, and photographs produced by the United States and other member nations of the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR).

 

• Professional Organizations

  American Geophysical Union

Environmental and Engineering Geophysical Society

Seismological Society of America

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IV. Paleontology, Sedimentology, Stratigraphy

• Reference

  DICTIONARIES AND ENCYCLOPEDIAS

Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs. Philip J. Currie and Kevin Padian, eds. San Diego: Academic Press, 1997.
REF QE862.D5 C862 1997

Encyclopedia of Paleontology. Ronald Singer, ed. Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, 1999.
REF QE703 .E523 1999 v. 1, 2

The Encyclopedia of Sedimentology. Rhodes W. Fairbridge and Joanne Bourgeois, eds. Stroudsburg, Pa.: Dowden, Hutchinson & Ross, 1978.
REF QE471 .E49

Index Fossils of North America. Hervey W. Shimer and Robert R. Shrock. New York: J. Wiley & Sons, inc.; London: Chapman & Hall, Limited, 1944.
REF QE745 .S48

Vertebrate Paleontology. Alfred Sherwood Romer. Chicago, Ill.: University of Chicago Press, [1966].
QE841 .R6 1966

 

• Maps and Atlases

Review and Atlas of Palaeovegetation
Preliminary land ecosystem maps of the world since the Last Glacial Maximum.

 

• Journals

PRINT (found in the DeWitt Wallace Library)

Journal of Paleontology (also available online)
Journal of Sedimentary Research (Sections A and B)
Paleobiology (also available online through JSTOR or BIOONE)
Palaios

ELECTRONIC (via DeWitt Wallace Library subscription)

Journal of Paleontology (also available in print)
Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology
Paleobiology through JSTOR or BIOONE (also available in print)

ONLINE (freely available on the Internet)

Palaeontologia Electronica
Online paleontology journal

 

• Internet Resources

  Bedform Sedimentology Studies (USGS)
  Online version of and companion material to Cross-Bedding, Bedforms, and Paleocurrents by David M. Rubin (Tulsa, Okla. : Society of Economic Paleontologists and Mineralogists, c1987).

Bibliography of Fossil Vertebrates Online (1509-1993)
Online access to the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology's Bibliography of Fossil Vertebrates series, which indexes the world literature of vertebrate paleontology.

DinoBase
Database including dinosaur genera/species lists, taxonomy, and pictures.

Dino Directory, Natural History Museum (UK)
Basic information on well-known dinosaurs, including images and reconstructions.

Dinosaur Genera
A list of genera for over 800 dinosaurs.

Faunmap
An electronic database of late Quaternary distribution of mammal species in the United States, hosted by the Illinois State Museum.

The Micropalaeontological Society
Consists of microvertebrate, foraminifera, ostracod, palynology, nannoplankton/fossil, and siliceous microfossil groups.

Micropaleontological Reference Centers
Collections of calcareous nannofossils, foraminifera, radiolarians, and diatoms selected from sediment cores obtained from the Deep Sea Drilling Project and its successor, the Ocean Drilling Program.

PaleoNet
PaleoNet is a system of listservers, www pages, and ftp sites designed to enhance electronic communication among paleontologists.

University of California, Berkeley, Museum of Paleontology
Paleontology collections and online exhibits, as well as extensive resources for paleontology, natural history, and phylogenetics.

VERTPALEO Listserver
An e-mail list for the professional vertebrate paleontology community.

 

• Professional Organizations

American Association of Stratigraphic Palynologists (AASP)

Clay Minerals Society

International Association of Sedimentologists (IAS)

International Palaeontological Association

The Paleontological Society

Sedimentary Division of GSA

Society for Sedimentary Geology

Society of Vertebrate Paleontology

 

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V. Geomorphology, Environmental Geology

• Databases, Indexes, and Abstracts

CGRG Bibliography of Canadian Geomorphology
Searchable database of 16,000 records of publications on geomorphology in Canada by the Canadian Geomorphology Research Group.

 

• Journals

ONLINE (freely available on the Internet)

Glacial Geology and Geomorphology
Refereed electronic journal of The British Geomorphological Research Group.

 

• Internet Resources

  Geomorphology From Space: A Global Overview of Regional Landforms
  Out of print 1986 NASA publication edited by Nicholas M. Short, Sr. and Robert W. Blair, Jr. Includes a gallery of space imagery, each treating a geographic region where a particular landform theme is exemplified.

Globalchange.gov
Global Change Data and information System (GCDIS) and U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP).

NASA's Global Change Master Directory (GCMD)
Descriptions of Earth science data sets and services relevant to global change research, covering agriculture, the atmosphere, biosphere, hydrosphere and oceans, snow and ice, geology and geophysics, paleoclimatology, and human dimensions of global change.

The National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC)
A national center maintaining information and data about snow cover, avalanches, glaciers, ice sheets, freshwater ice, sea ice, ground ice, permafrost, atmospheric ice, paleoglaciology, and ice cores.

The Scientific Nature of Geomorphology (online). Edited by Bruce L. Rhoads and Colin E. Thorn. Proceedings of the 27th Binghamton Symposium in Geomorphology held 27-29 September 1996. Chichester; New York: John Wiley & Sons Ltd., 1996.

The Virtual Geomorphology
Extensive compilation of links to sites with hypertext documents (online texts) in geomorphology.

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VI. GeoRef

Click here for GeoRef search tips!

GeoRef is a comprehensive database of world literature in geosciences by the American Geological Institute. GeoRef (equivalent to the print Bibliography and Index of Geology-Mac Stacks QE26 .B52) contains over 2.2 million references to geoscience journal articles, books, maps, conference papers, reports and theses. Dates of coverage are 1785 to the present for North America and 1933 to the present for worldwide coverage, with approximately 3,000 new records added biweekly updates.

Also available is the GeoRef in Process database, which contains records that are in the process of being indexed prior to their inclusion in GeoRef. However, most of these records are non-English language and not recent. Thus, GeoRef in Process is NOT a database of recent or the most current references. For the most comprehensive search, you should search both GeoRef and GeoRef in Process.

Major Subject Areas Covered:

Bibliographic Record Field Codes: (click here for more explanation)

GeoRef Classification:

GeoRef classifications break up the field of geology into broad categories, which are arranged hierarchically by subject area and assigned 2-digit codes. To search for a specific category, use either the word(s) or the 2-digit code. Click here for GeoRef's list of codes.

Publication Type: (there is a searchable Publication Type Index for GeoRef and GeoRef in Process: click on at the lower left, select publication type index from the drop-down menu, and enter publication type)

• Publication or document type: Serial; Book; Report; Conference document; Map; Thesis or dissertation; or Summary only.
• Treatment or bibliographic level: Analytic (eg: research paper); Monographic (eg: book, report, thesis); Collective (eg: series of monographs); or Serial (eg: journal, annual directory).
• Type of degree (when the document type is a thesis or dissertation): Doctoral; Master's; Bachelor's.

GeoRef Search Tips

Make sure that GeoRef and/or GeoRef in Process are selected as the databases to search.

Types of Searches

QUICK SEARCH

• 'as keyword(s)' to search the title, abstract, and descriptors fields simultaneously;
  
• 'in title' to search the title field only;
• 'as author' to search only the author field
  • There is a searchable Author Index for both GeoRef and GeoRef in Process: click on , select author index from the drop-down menu, and enter the author name.

• 'in journal name' to only search by within the 'source' field; or
• 'anywhere' to search all of the fields.

If searching with multiple words:

• choose 'Exact phrase' to search for the words immediately adjacent, exactly as they were entered;
• choose 'Any of the words' for records with one or more of the words; or
• choose 'All of the words' to find all the words entered, but not necessarily adjacent or in that exact order

  ADVANCED SEARCH

  The Advanced Search lets you more specifically search any of the fields for certain terms in relation to one another (through the use of Boolean Operators).

Search Methods

Use these methods in conjunction with search terms to either broaden or narrow searches for greater or fewer results. For additional help, click here.

Boolean Operators (for further explanation, click here)

• AND: narrows searches by retrieving only records containing all of the words it separates
• OR: broadens searches by retrieving records containing any of the words it separates
• NOT: narrows searches by retrieving records that do not contain the term following it
• ( ): groups words or phrases when combining Boolean phrases to show the order of relationships, eg: (mouse or mice) and (gene or pseudogene)

  Truncation and Wildcard

• *: truncating a search term with an asterisk will search for all the forms of a root word, eg: dinosaur* retrieves dinosaur, dinosaurs, dinosauria, etc.
• *: use an asterisk to search for multiple or alternative spellings; the asterisk indicates an unlimited number of characters within a word, eg: pal*ntology will retrieve paleontology or palaeontology.

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