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Reference Sources*

* (located in the Science Library if a print source; for online sources you must be on campus, or an authorized UO user if off campus, to access)

See the library's web Geological Sciences Research Guide, for more information but here are a few places to start:

Dictionaries & Encyclopedias

• Challinor's Dictionary of Geology, 6th ed. [QE5 .C45 1986]
• Encyclopedia of Earth System Science. [QE5 .E6514 1992]
• Encyclopedia of Earthquakes and Volcanoes, 3rd ed. [QE521 .R58 2007]
  • Includes appendices on eyewitness accounts of major eruptions and quakes, further reading and websites, lists of deadliest, highest magnitude, etc.
• Encyclopedia of Geology [QE5 .E516 2005] 5 volumes.
• Encyclopedia of Hurricanes, Typhoons, and Cyclones [QC944 .L66 2008]
• Encyclopedia of Volcanoes [QE522 .E53 2000]
• Glossary of Geology [QE5 .G37 2005]
• Oxford Reference Online: Earth Sciences
  Dictionaries and encyclopedias in earth and environmental sciences.
• UCMP Glossary of Natural History Terms, Volume #2, Geological Terms. From the Museum of Paleontology, UC Berkeley.

Handbooks and Guides

Landslide Handbook: A Guide to Understanding Landslides. USGS Circular 1325, November 2008.

Natural Disasters: Floods: A Reference Handbook [GB1399.3 .M56 2000] Also available through NetLibrary.

• Includes extensive bibliographies; useful for anything that's not real recent.

Tsunami: The Underrated Hazard, 2nd ed. [GC221.2 .B78 2008 - not in reference]

Volcanoes of the World: a regional directory, gazetteer, and chronology of volcanism during the last 10,000 years. [QE522 .V92 1994]

• Writing style guides:
  • Geowriting: A Guide to Writing, Editing, and Printing in Earth Science. QE48.85 .G46 1995 (2 copies, one in SCI REF)
  • Suggestions to Authors of the Reports of the United States Geological Survey (the USGS style guide.)

And, should you happen to be researching the effects of Hurricane Katrina, I can highly recommend:
Hurricane Katrina - What Happened?: A Field Trip: The Geology of the Katrina Disaster in New Orleans

• Very informative, with lots of photos and illustrations, by Stephen Nelson, a geologist at Tulane. (I went on this field trip with Dr. Nelson 9 months after Katrina.)

Databases

EM-DAT The International Emergency Events Database

• "contains essential core data on the occurrence and effects of over 16,000 mass disasters in the world from 1900 to present. The database is compiled from various sources, including UN agencies, non-governmental organisations, insurance companies, research institutes and press agencies"

SHELDUS Special Hazard Events and Losses Database for the United States

• "SHELDUS is a county-level hazard data set for the U.S. for 18 different natural hazard events types ... For each event the database includes the beginning date, location (county and state), property losses, crop losses, injuries, and fatalities that affected each county. The data set does not include Puerto Rico, Guam, or other U.S. territories"

Compare the above reference sources with:
Wikipedia

• Do the articles have identified authors? Are the authors credentials and affiliations available? Do the articles have references or bibliographies? If so, are there differences in the kinds of references given?
• Wikipedia is a very handy, free Internet source, but it is not always reliable or the best source. For a humorous demonstration of this phenomenon, watch the excerpt of the Colbert Report on Comedy Central. (Some improvements have been made to Wikipedia since this segment aired.)
  • See also this interesting discussion of math and physics articles in Wikipedia on the Not Even Wrong blog.

Evaluating Sources

This web page contains a wealth of information on evaluating information sources both in print and on the Web: Critical Evaluation of Information Sources

To determine whether a particular periodical (magazine, journal) is scholarly (peer-reviewed, refereed) or popular, see these pages:

• Scholarly or Popular?
• Types of Periodicals (pdf)

What is "peer-review"?

Here are a couple of pdfs that provide good explanations of what it is (and is not), and why it's particularly important in the sciences:

• Peer Review in a Nutshell
• Sense About Science Short Peer Review Guide

(NB: both of the above are produced in the UK, so there are a few Britishisms that may not make sense)