Geology 

Materials which are referred to for brief or general information. Examples include:

• Background or overview synopses (encyclopedia)
• Definitions (dictionary)
• Synonyms (thesaurus)
• Statistics
• Biographical Details
• Maps (atlas)

Links/Resources to the right are specific to this discipline.  General sources can be found at the libraries Reference Sources page.

Reference resources are organized in an order that aids searching (alphabetically, chronologically, etc).  Most include an index which points users to the appropriate section.  Tips for searching:

1. Decide on your search terms
2. Try searching with them
3. If not satisfied with the results, try searching a synonym or related idea

Things to watch out for:

• Is the computer searching only the title/header of the entries or the full-text of the information?  You will get more results, but more of them will be irrelabent if you are searching the full-text.
• Are you searching for a proper noun (name, place,...)?  Make sure that the spelling is correct and try variations if it originated in a foreign language.
• Searching for something by date?  This is trickier than it sounds.  If possible, search for an event name or topic rather than a date, e.g. civil rights movement or hippies or flower children rather than 1960s.

Most useful:

• Geology (2v): Ref QE5 .G465 1999
• Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences (2v): Ref QE5 .E5137 1996
• Encyclopedia of Paleontology (2v): Ref QE703 .E523 1999
• Encyclopedia of Sediments and sedimentary rocks: Ref QE471.2 .E53 2003
• Dictionary of Geophysics, Astrophysics, & Astronomy: Ref QB14 .D53 2001

Also consider using:

• Search BearCat for geology encyclopedias and handbooks