The very best way to search is to acquire a complete bibliography for your specific subject from a geology library or combined periodical index. This way you will know exactly which journals and issues to buy to get the articles you want. If this isn't possible, the following hints may help.

Please remember that individual article titles are NOT listed for many of our journals. Thus, even if a pertinant article is present in our stock, it may not appear in a search using that key word. Most of our publications are listed by where they were published, not by their subject locations. A large number of listings do not include the name of the author (not through any disrespect to the author, but rather a recognition of an impossible typing load), thus it is wise to seach by key word as well.

Many of the geology papers and journals in our inventory pertain to more than one area or subject. We have tried to split them into groups in the most logical way possible, but this often meant choosing just one of several potential subject areas.

First Search Option:

Type your word or phrase into the search box and click "Search." The results list will have each page title followed by the occurrences on the page. Each occurrence is accompanied by the nearest surrounding text to help you evaluate it and find it on the indicated page. Click the page title to go to that page, then use your browser search feature (Edit - Find) to help you locate it on the page if needed.

To fine-tune your searching with the search box :
Use double quotes around a phrase to search for a whole phrase, i.e "anthracite coal"
Use a + in front of terms that must appear in each result, i.e. +Illinois +coal
Use a - in front of terms that must NOT appear, i.e. -bituminous -accidents
A short form of a word will yield all endings, i.e. volc yields volcano, volcanic, volcanism, etc.
5-100: for number of website page results to display

For example, a search box with 25: +Iceland +geothermal will yield a list of the first 25 results containing both Iceland and geothermal.

Second search option:

Starting from our main index page www.woodenski.com, go to each sub-page that sounds promising. Then, use the "Find" feature on your internet browser (usually located under "Edit" in the top menu.)

Search using several different key words, starting with the most specific (least common). Many people find it useful to use * in their search term. For example: sediment* will yield sediment, sediments, sedimentology, sedimentation, etc. Choose "Find Next" to highlight the next occurence of your search term on the page - most browsers have a shortcut key for this command. Repeat the search on as many of the pages in our site as applicable.

Which pages should I search?
We recommend searching the most likely USGS pages, plus the journal pages and the off-print page. USGS pages are organized primarily by subject. The USGS "general geology" section was too big, so we split out Alaska - general and Foreign - general. These are the only two sub-pages of this type.

Example 1: You are interested to see every paper we might have on Iceland, regardless of specific topic. For this, you would search on Iceland* in all of the USGS pages (except General geology, and Alaska - general) plus the journal pages plus the off-print pages plus foreign journal pages.

Example 2: You what anything to do with Icelandic hydrology. It might be worthwhile to search all of the pages, but a fair search would include General geology - foreign, Hydrology, Sedimentology, each journal page, the foreign journal pages and the off prints page. You could search using Iceland* and arctic*. If you were searching for a more commonly studied country, like France, you might want to expand search terms something like this: Fr* hydr*, Fr* geohyd*, Fr* aqu*, etc. etc., perhaps even Europe* hydr* and more.

Which search terms should I use?
Start with the most specific term possible. This may yield exactly what you need. From here, work out to more broad terms, larger regions, foreign spellings, etc. Remember to make good use of the * to save running multiple searches just to get plurals. Looking for the Green mine in Mexico? Search also under Mina Verde.