Library Guides: Geophysical Sciences: Articles & Journals

Article Databases

While GoogleScholar can be a convenient tool for finding articles in geological sciences, it is not comprehensive. The Library subscribes to many databases in specific areas of science, engineering and medicine. The following are those which are most useful in finding articles on topics in geophysical sciences. For a complete list of all databases provided by the Library, visit the Database Finder.

GeoRef

GeoRef is an index covering geological literature, with citations and abstracts from journals, conference proceedings, technical reports, and books. Covers North America since 1785 and other areas since 1933. Figures, tables, graphs, and other illustrations within individual articles are also indexed for searching. Limit of 4 simultaneous user(s).
Web of Science

Authoritative, multidisciplinary content covers over 10,000 of the highest impact journals worldwide, including Open Access journals and over 110,000 conference proceedings. You'll find current and retrospective coverage in the sciences, social sciences, arts, and humanities, with coverage available to 1900. Includes the Science Citation Expanded, Social Sciences Citation Index, and Arts & Humanities Citation Index. Web of Science is especially useful for its citation linking.
Scopus

Scopus is an interdisciplinary, bibliographic database that indexes the contents of more than 29,000 journals in the physical sciences, engineering, earth and environmental sciences, life and health sciences, social sciences, psychology, business, and management.

Scopus also features cited references and can be searched for articles that cite a specific article.
Zoological Record

Database of over 6,500 international journals, review annuals, monographs, meeting proceedings, books, reports, reviews and electronic documents. Aspects of zoology represented include animal behavior, biochemistry, ecology, evolution, habitat, nutrition, parasitology, reproduction, taxonomy, and zoogeography. Includes both living and extinct (fossil) animal life. An annually-updated thesaurus allows viewing of subject, geographical, palaeontological, and taxonomical hierarchical vocabularies.
CAS SciFinder-n

SciFinder-n is a research discovery tool that allows you to explore the CAS databases that contain literature from many scientific disciplines including biomedical sciences, chemistry, engineering, material science, agricultural science, and more.
Provides access to Chemical Abstracts references (1907-current), including searches by CAS Registry Number (RN), author, topic, molecular formula, and structure/substructure (compound or reaction). Structure/substructure searches retrieve results from the CASREACT reaction database and the CA Registry File compound database. Links to full-text of articles and patents are available.
ProQuest Dissertations & Theses

Includes citations for materials from the first U.S. dissertation (1861) to those accepted as recently as last semester. Starting in 1997 full-text is often available. If full-text is not available information about ordering the document is provided.
GeoScienceWorld
Full GeoRef database is also searchable from GeoScienceWorld site.

GeoScienceWorld includes peer-reviewed articles and other materials with linked reference lists from more than 30 important journals in a broad range of geoscience areas. Searchable full text integrated with GeoRef, a comprehensive indexing and abstracting database for information from geosciences journals, conference, dissertation and other resources. Coverage for GSW journals is mostly 2000 to present, with records from GeoRef covering geosciences literature from the late 1700's to present. Advanced search capabilities, including geographic searching by latitude and longitude, variety of options for limiting results sets, and other features are available. GeoRef searching is also available separately; see "GeoRef" in the Database Finder.

Finding Journal Titles

The Library has an extensive collections of journals in the geophysical sciences, both online and in print. The following links may be useful in tracking down specific journals.

Journal Abbreviations Sources (JAS)
Helpful link to find the sources to look up full journal titles from abbreviations.
GeoRef Serials List
Lists journals covered in the GeoRef database, but does not have abbreviations.

EndNote and Zotero

EndNote and Zotero are research management tools that helps you collect, organize, and share citations from library databases and catalogs. The Library provides training resources and services to help you use these tools effectively and efficiently.

Zotero
by Ask a Librarian Updated Sep 12, 2024 2777 views this year

EndNote
by Ask a Librarian Updated Aug 27, 2025 2046 views this year

Searching for Citation Information

The Library provides resources for locating a variety of measures of research impact, including counts of citations to a particular paper, measures of citations to specific authors, and impact factors for journal titles. Tools are often integrated into articles databases.

Journal Citation Reports

Provides citation data on scholarly journals for purposes of evaluation and comparison.
Web of Science

Authoritative, multidisciplinary content covers over 10,000 of the highest impact journals worldwide, including Open Access journals and over 110,000 conference proceedings. You'll find current and retrospective coverage in the sciences, social sciences, arts, and humanities, with coverage available to 1900. Includes the Science Citation Expanded, Social Sciences Citation Index, and Arts & Humanities Citation Index. Web of Science is especially useful for its citation linking.
Scopus

Scopus is an interdisciplinary, bibliographic database that indexes the contents of more than 29,000 journals in the physical sciences, engineering, earth and environmental sciences, life and health sciences, social sciences, psychology, business, and management.

Scopus also features cited references and can be searched for articles that cite a specific article.

Calculating an author's h-index

Contact Information

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