Geology: Web Resources

The Geological Society of America is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the advancement of the geosciences. Part of the Geological Society of America's vision is to foster the human quest for understanding Earth, planets, and life.

AGU is dedicated to the furtherance of the geophysical sciences through the individual efforts of its members and in cooperation with other national and international scientific organizations.

MSA was founded in 1919 for the advancement of mineralogy, crystallography, geochemistry, petrology, and promotion of their uses in other sciences, industry, and the arts. The Society publishes a number of materials including books, and journals.

The Envirofacts portal provides detailed environmental data on local water quality, toxic emissions, and other information, searchable by zip code.

A nonprofit clearinghouse for environmental and public health issues. Includes breaking news, "backgrounders" on topics in environmental health, transportation, climate and air quality, land use, and oceans and water. For each topic, there are fast facts, background, links to sources, and often contacts. Aimed at working journalists, this site is a good source of news and information.

The new site IPL2: Information You Can Trust, merging the Internet Public Library (IPL) and the Librarians Internet Index (LII), features a searchable, subject-categorized directory of authoritative websites; links to online texts, newspapers, and magazines; special sections for kids and teens; and a collection on IPL2-generated special collections on a variety of topics.

A digital archive of material, including reports on “hot topics,” Congressional Research Service reports, and abstracts and links to over 14,000 reports on population and the environment. This site is a project of the National Council for Science and the Environment.

An amazing tool from the U.S. Geological Survey. The viewer allows users to zoom in on any part of the United States and choose map layers such as elevation, roads, water, land use, and even detailed aerial satellite images. Whether you're examining a region, a state, or a few city blocks, this tool offers access to a wealth of topographic information.

Since 1879, this federal project has provided the nation with geologic information and mapping services. Its Web site provides information about earthquakes, environmental and biological material, geospatial data and mapping projects, and other geologic resources.

EPA is an agency of the federal government of the United States charged with protecting human health and the environment, by writing and enforcing regulations based on laws passed by Congress.

The Windows to the Universe website is a richly interlinked ecosystem for learning about the Earth and Space sciences for use by the general public, students, and teachers.

Offers many digital publications on environmental issues, including country profiles and EarthTrends (http://earthtrends.wri.org), a portal for a wealth of data on environmental topics including population, energy, water resources, biodiversity, and economic issues affecting the environment.

NOAA's National Geophysical Data Center (NGDC) provides scientific stewardship, products, and services for geophysical data from the Sun to the Earth and Earth's sea floor and solid earth environment, including Earth observations from space.

The Encyclopedia of Earth (EoE) is an electronic reference about the Earth, its natural environments, and their interaction with society. The EoE is a free, expert-reviewed collection of content contributed by scholars, professionals, educators, practitioners and other experts who collaborate and review each other's work.

The Mineralogy Database contains 4,714 individual mineral species descriptions with links and a comprehensive image library. Each mineral has a page linked to tables devoted to crystallography, crystal structures, X-Ray powder diffraction, chemical composition, physical and optical properties, Dana's New classification, Strunz classification, mineral specimen images, and alphabetical listings of mineral species.

Virtual library on geography, planning, geosciences, and environmental sciences with more than 4600 links organized into the following categories: academic subjects, countries and regions, library collections and museums, international organizations, professional organizations, university departments and research schools, statistical agencies and resources, publishers, journals by subject, reference, congresses and mailing lists, and miscellaneous.

From the American Geological Institute this is a gateway to the geosciences. It has climate data, images of volcanoes, lakes, minerals, dunes, an interactive geological time scale, careers and education programs.

Offers a searchable collection of thousands of links to educational resources for all levels of education on all aspects of the Earth as a system. Supported by NSF.