Research Guides: Geological Sciences and Geological Engineering: Finding Articles

Research & Instruction Librarian

Maggie Gordon

she/her

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Douglas Library
Room 520

Subjects: Biology, Environmental Studies, Geological Sciences

Finding Articles

Peer-reviewed journal articles are important scientific communication tools in Geological Sciences and Geological Engineering. The peer-review publication process helps to ensure that the research findings are trustworthy, accurate, and of value to the field. They often contain the first reports of new research and sometimes contain literature review summaries of past research conducted on a topic that is of current interest.

Flow of Scientific Information
This chart visualizes the creation process of scientific information, beginning from the first idea or hypothesis through each different type of research output (article, conference proceeding, monograph, handbook, etc.).

Start Searching

Web of Science (Core Collection)
A large, multidisciplinary database, Web of Science provides access to bibliographic information, author abstracts, and cited references from scholarly journals and conference proceedings. A cited reference search enables you to find articles that cite a previously published work.
This database consists of these subject components, which can be searched simultaneously or individually (to search individually, limit to required citation database(s) at bottom of screen):

Science Citation Index Expanded - science and technology journals from 1900-present
Social Sciences Citation Index - social sciences journals from 1956-present
Arts & Humanities Citation Index - arts and humanities journals from 1975-present
Conference Proceedings Citation Index - Science (CPCI-S) from 1990-present
Conference Proceedings Citation Index - Social Science & Humanities (CPCI-SSH) from 1990-present
Journal Citation Reports (listing impact factors and other journal performance metrics) are available through Web of Science.

Science Citation Index: 1900 - present ; Social Sciences Citation Index: 1956 - present ; Arts and Humanities: 1975 - present
Scopus
Scopus is the largest abstract and citation database, including peer-reviewed titles from international publishers, Open Access journals, conference proceedings, trade publications, quality web sources.
Date Coverage: 1788-present (updated daily)
Google Scholar
Free access

Use the Google search engine to locate articles from a wide variety of academic publishers, professional societies, preprint repositories and universities, as well as scholarly articles published on the "open" web.
Should you encounter a captcha problem, you can still search QUL resources by going to https://scholar.google.com following the instructions here.

AGU Digital Library
The American Geophysical Union Digital Library includes journals spanning a wide range of topics in earth and space sciences.
Date Coverage: 1896 - present

John Lindsley Memorial Endowment
ASCE Research Library
The ASCE Library is the world’s largest full-text database of civil engineering research and practical publications. It offers online access to more than 145,000 technical and professional papers—1.5 million pages of content. More than 7,000 papers are added annually. Queen’s Library subscribes to the complete package that includes journals, proceedings books, standards, and Civil Engineering magazine.
Technical and professional interest areas of civil engineering include: Aerospace, Architectural, Coastal and Ocean, Computing in Civil Engineering, Construction, Energy, Engineering Mechanics, Environmental, Geotechnical, Hydraulic, Infrastructure, Materials, Management, Professional Issues, Structural, Transportation, Urban Planning, and Water Resources. Searching and browsing the collection, and viewing the table of contents and abstracts of papers are freely available. Downloading the full-text of papers, books, and standards is restricted to members of the Queen's community

ASCE Journals 1983- present
ASCE Proceedings 1966-present
E-Books 1980- present
ASCE Standards 1983- present
Civil Engineering Magazine Archive: 2005-2019
GEOBASE
GEOBASE consists of the latest information on the earth sciences, ecology, geology, human and physical geography, and environmental sciences, focusing on, and highlighting, the human and social impacts on both.
It covers 3+ million abstract records, providing a comprehensive geological evaluation of any desired region. This includes geological structure and relation to natural resources, as well as linking management, transport, and urban planning.

Date Coverage: 1974 - present
GeoRef
Established by the American Geological Institute (AGI) in 1966, GeoRef indexes over several thousand journals in 40 languages as well as books, maps, reports, most U.S. Geological Survey publications, and American and Canadian masters and doctoral theses.
Major areas of coverage include: areal geology, economic geology, engineering geology, environmental geology, extraterrestrial geology, geochemistry, geochronology, geophysics, hydrogeology and hydrology, marine geology and oceanography, mathematical geology, mineralogy and crystallography, paleontology, petrology, seismology, stratigraphy, structural geology, surficial geology.

Date Coverage: Geology of North America: 1693 - present ; Geology worldwide: 1933 - present
GeoScienceWorld
GeoScienceWorld (GSW) is a full-text resource for research and communications in the earth sciences, which is built on a core database of 46 peer-reviewed journals and is integrated with the GeoRef index.
The organization gives global researchers a single point of access to 46 full-text scholarly journals plus specialized searching capabilities and links to millions of relevant resources hosted elsewhere on the Web.

Founding organizations: American Association of Petroleum Geologists • American Geosciences Institute • Geological Society of America • Geological Society of London • Mineralogical Society of America • Society for Sedimentary Geology • Society of Exploration Geophysicists.
Lyell Collection
The Lyell Collection represents one of the largest integrated collections of online Earth science literature available with >18,000 articles. Images and datasets are also available.
Contains the following publications:

Journal of the Geological Society
Quarterly Journal of Engineering Geology and Hydrogeology
Geochemistry: Exploration, Environment, Analysis
Petroleum Geoscience
Scottish Journal of Geology
Proceedings of the Yorkshire Geological Society
Journal of Micropalaeontology (1982 to 2017)
Transactions of the Geological Society of London
Transactions of the Edinburgh Geological Society
Transactions of the Geological Society of Glasgow
Special Publications
Engineering Geology Special Publications
Memoirs
Petroleum Geology Conferences series

Date Coverage: 1811 to present, depending on publication.

Donor: John Lindsley Memorial Endowment.

Annual Reviews
Comprehensive collection of critical reviews by leading scientists, covering 29 disciplines within the Biomedical, Physical, and Social Sciences.
Date Coverage: Varies by journal start date.
Environment Complete
Deep coverage of environmental aspects of agriculture, ecosystem ecology, energy, renewable energy sources, natural resources, marine & freshwater science, geography, pollution & waste management, environmental technology, environmental law, public policy, social impacts, urban planning, and more.
Environment Complete contains more than 1,957,000 records, some with images, from more than 1,700 domestic and international titles going back to the 1940s (including 1,125 active core titles) as well as more than 120 monographs. The database also contains full text for more than 680 journals, including many of the most used journals in the discipline, such as Environment (back to 1975), Ecologist, and Conservation Biology. Additionally, Environment Complete provides full text for 120 monographs, such as Encyclopedia of World Environmental History (3 volumes), and Advances in Water Treatment & Environmental Management.

Date Coverage: Varies by title. 1940s to present.
GreenFILE
GreenFILE covers the connections between the environment and a variety of disciplines such as agriculture, education, law, health and technology. It offers indexing and abstracts for more than 850,000 records and open access full text for nearly 13,000 records.
GreenFILE offers well-researched information covering all aspects of human impact to the environment. Its collection of scholarly, government and general-interest titles includes content on the environmental effects of individuals, corporations and local/national governments, and what can be done at each level to minimize these effects.

Date Coverage: Varies by publication.

Where's the Article?

If the full-text is not available in the database, click on the Get It @ Queen's button to see if the article is available electronically (either from a journal or another database) or in print.

If the article is not available, you can request a copy using Interlibrary Loans. It's free!

Looking for something else?

You can browse all databases that QUL subscribes to by subject from the QUL website.

Finding Journals by Subject

If you would like to find a list of all journals for a specific subject, or just a list of the top journals in a specific subject, Scimago Journal & Country Rank is a great search tool. Use the journal rankings tab and then refine by subject area and subject category depending on your research topic.

You can then search for the journal in OMNI to see if we have it.

Scimago Journal & Country Rank