examples of geology literature reviews

GEOL 355: Structural Geology and Tectonics

What is a literature review, what should a literature review include, how is a literature review organized, how much time does it take to write a literature review.

• Types of Literature
• Searching the Literature: Books
• Searching the Literature: Online Sources
• Creating Figures and Tables
• Citing Sources

Research & Instruction Librarian

A literature review surveys scholarly articles, books and other sources relevant to a particular subject. It provides a description, summary, and critical evaluation of each source. Thus, the purpose of a literature review is to provide an overview of significant literature published on a particular topic. A literature review is not just a simple summary of the sources though - it should have an organizational pattern and a combination of both summary and synthesis.

Main Objectives of a Literature Review

• Surveys the literature on a particular topic
• Synthesizes the information in that literature into a summary
• Critically analyzes the information gathered
• Presents the literature in an organized way

A literature review should include:

• An overview of the subject, issue or theory under consideration, along with the objectives of the literature review
• Division of the sources into categories (see below)
• Explanation of how each source is similar to one another and how it varies from the others
• Conclusions as to which sources are best considered in their argument, are most convincing of their opinions, and make the greatest contribution to the understanding and development of their area of research

A literature review must contain at least three basic elements: an introduction or background information section, the body of the review containing the discussion of sources, and a conclusion and/or recommendations section to end the paper.

• Introduction : Gives a quick idea of the topic of the literature review, such as the central theme or organizational pattern.
• Body : Contains your discussion of sources and is organized either chronologically, thematically, or methodologically. For this literature review, you will organize the body thematically (see below for additional information).
• Conclusions/Recommendations :  Discuss what you have drawn from reviewing the literature so far. Where might the discussion proceed?

Organizing the body

Create a thematic organizational method to focus this section:

• Organize your sources around themes, theoretical concepts, and topics. Literature reviews organized thematically should have subtopics based upon factors that relate to the theme or issue.
• General characteristics and distinctive features (geography, length, width, elevation, topography, cultural significance, resource importance, notable or notorious)
• Plate tectonic setting
• Major structural features and description of general style of deformation
• Age and timing of formation of the major structural features in relation to plate tectonics 

A literature review, particularly one of this length (15-20 pages), takes months  to complete. To avoid leaving the assignment to the last minute (or the last few days) at the expense of the quality of your work, develop a timeline with specific milestones for each stage of the literature review process. These stages are:

• Planning : Identify the focus, type, and scope of the review you intend to write.
• Reading and research : Collect and read research on your topic. Select only those sources that are most relevant to your paper.
• Analyzing : Summarize, synthesize, critique, and compare your sources in order to assess the field of research as a whole.
• Drafting : Develop a thesis and decide how to organize your material.
• Revising : Revise and refine the structural, stylistic, and grammatical issues of your paper.
• Redrafting : The first draft is a coherent, but not perfect, document. Be prepared to redraft and revise multiple times throughout this process.
• Revising : Your final draft should be coherent, free of spelling and grammatical errors, complete with references and figures, and properly formatted.

If you want to write a high quality literature review, a timeline with specific milestones is essential, so set a due date for each stage of the process. Having a date planned and written down will help you stay on track for each stage and reduce feeling overwhelmed when writing.

• Next: Types of Literature >>
• Last Updated: Aug 5, 2024 12:34 PM
• URL: https://guides.library.sc.edu/geol355

GEOG_GEOL4120: Introduction to Research: Literature Review

• Start Your Research
• Find Background Information
• Grey Literature
• Annotated Bibliography
• Literature Review
• Citing Sources This link opens in a new window
• Assessment of Instruction

This is an excellent video from NC State on the processes involved in a literature review.   It is a little lengthy, but worth watching! 

Here are some titles from the Zach S Henderson Library catalog to help guide you as you write your Literature Review and Research Proposal.

What is a review of the literature?

A literature review is an account of what has been published on a topic by accredited scholars and researchers. Occasionally you will be asked to write one as a separate assignment (sometimes in the form of an annotated bibliography), but more often it is part of the introduction to an essay, research report and/or proposal, or thesis. In writing the literature review, your purpose is to convey to your reader what knowledge and ideas have been established on a topic, and what their strengths and weaknesses are. As a piece of writing, the literature review must be defined by a guiding concept (e.g., your research objective, the problem or issue you are discussing, or your argumentative thesis). It is not just a descriptive list of the material available, or a set of summaries.

* Written by Dena Taylor, Health Sciences Writing Centre   (University of Toronto)

What a Literature Review is NOT:

A literature review is a piece of discursive prose, not a list describing or summarizing one piece of literature after another. It's usually a bad sign to see every paragraph beginning with the name of a researcher.

Instead, organize the literature review into sections that present themes or identify trends , including relevant theory. You are not trying to list all the material published, but to synthesize and evaluate it according to the guiding concept of your thesis or research question .  (Taylor, D.)

Step 1: Search the Literature

Use a variety of sources: books, articles, conference proceedings, government reports, thesis and dissertations, etc!  Do NOT rely solely on electronic full-text material (which is readily available).  Reference resources, such as dictionaries, may be useful in defining key terminology, and encyclopedic sources may provide a good introduction in to specific areas of the topic. 

The MOST IMPORTANT PART of this step is to REVIEW and ANALYZE the literature you collect!  The review process is ongoing - you may need to go back to locate additional materials as you identify new ideas to see if others have written on similar topics.

During the review, you can begin to notice patterns in the literature, and to separate your findings in to different categories. 

Step 2: Write the Review

Remember, a literature review is NOT simply a list of the resources with a summary of each one!

You can organize the review in many ways; for example, you can center the review historically (how this topic has been dealt with over time); or center it on the theoretical positions surrounding your topic (those for a position vs. those against, for example); or you can focus on how each of your sources contributes to your understanding of your project.

Reviewing the Literature is an Adventure!

Remember! All you have to find is two or three really strong sources, and then let those sources lead you to others!

• If you don't know how to find a source from the citation in a reference, please ASK! I'll be happy to walk you through the process!
• Be sure to use that " Cited By " or " Times Cited in this Database " feature of the database. This will lead you to Newer additional sources!
• You can also use the " Find Similar " or " See Related " articles feature! 

Exploring the research in a field is exciting and may lead you to an area of research you never imagined!

• << Previous: Annotated Bibliography
• Next: Citing Sources >>
• Last Updated: Aug 8, 2024 11:40 AM
• URL: https://georgiasouthern.libguides.com/geog4120_research

• Queen's University Library
• Research Guides

Geological Sciences and Geological Engineering

• Writing a Literature Review
• Search Strategies
• Evaluating Information Quality
• Finding Articles
• Finding Books
• Reference Materials
• Maps and Geospatial Data This link opens in a new window
• Government Information This link opens in a new window
• Standards and Codes This link opens in a new window
• Citing & Citation Management
• Research Data Management This link opens in a new window
• Copyright Guidelines for Students This link opens in a new window
• How to Read an Article and Take Notes
• Concept Mapping and the Synthesis Matrix
• Writing the Review
• Workshop Materials

Scope Notes and Credits

Scope Notes

The purpose of this page is to provide information about writing literature reviews in STEM fields. 

Maggie Gordon, MLIS

Literature Reviews

Literature reviews are an important step in the research process and are commonly assigned in upper-year and graduate level courses. Alternatively, you may need to include one at the beginning of a research paper or as a chapter in a dissertation or thesis. No matter your reason for conducting one, a literature review should show the reader that you have a comprehensive understanding of the published research on a particular topic . The literature review should identify what has already been done and what is still left to be explored in your topic area, which prevents duplication of research efforts. Finally, it should show that you can position your own informed perspective into the scholarly conversation  as you make connections between studies and situate them within the broader context. The literature review should not be a summary of what you have found - it should be a critical evaluation . 

The three goals of a literature review are to:

• Summarize and analyze previous research and theories
• Identify trends, important questions, common methodology, controversy, and contested claims
• Highlight any gaps that may exist in the research to date

Depending on the purpose of your literature review, you may also need to situate your own research into the scholarly conversation and justify its value. 

Getting Started

It's important to be well organized before  you start working on your lit review. It might be helpful to have the following in place:

• A plan to keep track of where you search and what you search. This can be as simple as a Word or Excel file where you list the databases that you search in and the search strings, parameters, and other filters that you've used. 
• A citation management tool such as Zotero, Mendeley, or EndNote. This will help you keep track of your references and auto-populate citations as you write your review. It can also be a great place to store PDFs of articles or book chapters that you read. For more information, see the tab on Citing & Citation Management

A sample search log: 

This can be adapted to suit your needs, for a literature review that is part of a course assignment, you likely will not need the last two columns. 

• << Previous: Copyright Guidelines for Students
• Next: How to Read an Article and Take Notes >>

What about Systematic Reviews?

Systematic Reviews are another type of knowledge synthesis that people might refer to when talking about a literature reviews; however, they are quite different! A true systematic review must follow a rigorous methodological process and requires at least two people. Other common types of evidence synthesis include Narrative Reviews, Rapid Reviews, and Scoping Reviews. To learn more, visit our Guide to Systematic Reviews & Other Synthesis . 

• Last Updated: Aug 14, 2024 11:17 AM
• Subjects: Geological Sciences

University Library

• Research Guides

Geography and Global Studies

• Literature Reviews
• Getting Started
• Books, Encyclopedias, & Media
• Journals, Databases, & Collections
• Stats/Datasets
• Chicago/Turabian

What is a Literature Review?

The scholarly conversation.

A literature review provides an overview of previous research on a topic that critically evaluates, classifies, and compares what has already been published on a particular topic. It allows the author to synthesize and place into context the research and scholarly literature relevant to the topic. It helps map the different approaches to a given question and reveals patterns. It forms the foundation for the author’s subsequent research and justifies the significance of the new investigation.

A literature review can be a short introductory section of a research article or a report or policy paper that focuses on recent research. Or, in the case of dissertations, theses, and review articles, it can be an extensive review of all relevant research.

• The format is usually a bibliographic essay; sources are briefly cited within the body of the essay, with full bibliographic citations at the end.
• The introduction should define the topic and set the context for the literature review. It will include the author's perspective or point of view on the topic, how they have defined the scope of the topic (including what's not included), and how the review will be organized. It can point out overall trends, conflicts in methodology or conclusions, and gaps in the research.
• In the body of the review, the author should organize the research into major topics and subtopics. These groupings may be by subject, (e.g., globalization of clothing manufacturing), type of research (e.g., case studies), methodology (e.g., qualitative), genre, chronology, or other common characteristics. Within these groups, the author can then discuss the merits of each article and analyze and compare the importance of each article to similar ones.
• The conclusion will summarize the main findings, make clear how this review of the literature supports (or not) the research to follow, and may point the direction for further research.
• The list of references will include full citations for all of the items mentioned in the literature review.

Key Questions for a Literature Review

A literature review should try to answer questions such as

• Who are the key researchers on this topic?
• What has been the focus of the research efforts so far and what is the current status?
• How have certain studies built on prior studies? Where are the connections? Are there new interpretations of the research?
• Have there been any controversies or debate about the research? Is there consensus? Are there any contradictions?
• Which areas have been identified as needing further research? Have any pathways been suggested?
• How will your topic uniquely contribute to this body of knowledge?
• Which methodologies have researchers used and which appear to be the most productive?
• What sources of information or data were identified that might be useful to you?
• How does your particular topic fit into the larger context of what has already been done?
• How has the research that has already been done help frame your current investigation ?

Examples of Literature Reviews

Example of a literature review at the beginning of an article: Forbes, C. C., Blanchard, C. M., Mummery, W. K., & Courneya, K. S. (2015, March). Prevalence and correlates of strength exercise among breast, prostate, and colorectal cancer survivors . Oncology Nursing Forum, 42(2), 118+. Retrieved from http://go.galegroup.com.sonoma.idm.oclc.org/ps/i.do?p=HRCA&sw=w&u=sonomacsu&v=2.1&it=r&id=GALE%7CA422059606&asid=27e45873fddc413ac1bebbc129f7649c Example of a comprehensive review of the literature: Wilson, J. L. (2016). An exploration of bullying behaviours in nursing: a review of the literature.   British Journal Of Nursing ,  25 (6), 303-306. For additional examples, see:

Galvan, J., Galvan, M., & ProQuest. (2017). Writing literature reviews: A guide for students of the social and behavioral sciences (Seventh ed.). [Electronic book]

Pan, M., & Lopez, M. (2008). Preparing literature reviews: Qualitative and quantitative approaches (3rd ed.). Glendale, CA: Pyrczak Pub. [ Q180.55.E9 P36 2008]

Useful Links

• Write a Literature Review (UCSC)
• Literature Reviews (Purdue)
• Literature Reviews: overview (UNC)
• Review of Literature (UW-Madison)

Evidence Matrix for Literature Reviews

The  Evidence Matrix  can help you  organize your research  before writing your lit review.  Use it to  identify patterns  and commonalities in the articles you have found--similar methodologies ?  common  theoretical frameworks ? It helps you make sure that all your major concepts covered. It also helps you see how your research fits into the context  of the overall topic.

• Evidence Matrix Special thanks to Dr. Cindy Stearns, SSU Sociology Dept, for permission to use this Matrix as an example.
• << Previous: Maps
• Next: Chicago/Turabian >>
• Last Updated: Jan 8, 2024 12:41 PM
• URL: https://libguides.sonoma.edu/geography

• University of Utah
• ULibraries Research Guides
• * Marriott Library Research Guides

Geology & Geophysics

• Literature Reviews
• Find Articles & Papers
• Find Books and Maps
• Web Resources
• Data Management

Subject Guide

Need help contact us.

Phone: 801-581-6273 Email In-Person Schedule a Research Consultation More Subject Guides

Additional tools and resources for doing a literature review can be found on this  Canvas Open Webpage

Thank you to UC Santa Cruz for this great overview of a literature review ( https://guides.library.ucsc.edu/write-a-literature-review )

1. Introduction Not to be confused with a book review, a literature review surveys scholarly articles, books and other sources (e.g. dissertations, conference proceedings) relevant to a particular issue, area of research, or theory, providing a description, summary, and critical evaluation of each work. The purpose is to offer an overview of significant literature published on a topic.   2. Components Similar to primary research, development of the literature review requires four stages:

• Problem formulation—which topic or field is being examined and what are its component issues?
• Literature search—finding materials relevant to the subject being explored
• Data evaluation—determining which literature makes a significant contribution to the understanding of the topic
• Analysis and interpretation—discussing the findings and conclusions of pertinent literature

Literature reviews should comprise the following elements:

• An overview of the subject, issue or theory under consideration, along with the objectives of the literature review
• Division of works under review into categories (e.g. those in support of a particular position, those against, and those offering alternative theses entirely)
• Explanation of how each work is similar to and how it varies from the others
• Conclusions as to which pieces are best considered in their argument, are most convincing of their opinions, and make the greatest contribution to the understanding and development of their area of research

In assessing each piece, consideration should be given to:

• Provenance—What are the author's credentials? Are the author's arguments supported by evidence (e.g. primary historical material, case studies, narratives, statistics, recent scientific findings)?
• Objectivity—Is the author's perspective even-handed or prejudicial? Is contrary data considered or is certain pertinent information ignored to prove the author's point?
• Persuasiveness—Which of the author's theses are most/least convincing?
• Value—Are the author's arguments and conclusions convincing? Does the work ultimately contribute in any significant way to an understanding of the subject?

  3. Definition and Use/Purpose A literature review may constitute an essential chapter of a thesis or dissertation, or may be a self-contained review of writings on a subject. In either case, its purpose is to:

• Place each work in the context of its contribution to the understanding of the subject under review
• Describe the relationship of each work to the others under consideration
• Identify new ways to interpret, and shed light on any gaps in, previous research
• Resolve conflicts amongst seemingly contradictory previous studies
• Identify areas of prior scholarship to prevent duplication of effort
• Point the way forward for further research
• Place one's original work (in the case of theses or dissertations) in the context of existing literature

The literature review itself, however, does not present new primary scholarship.

Find published, peer-reviewed literature reviews in your field by searching the Academic Search Ultimate, EbscoHost, JStor, or Scopus Databases. Google Scholar will also provide a broad range of scholarly material that will help with beginning your literature review. Search "Literature Review" (title) and "Your area of interest." 

• Video from the North Carolina State University
• The University of Wisconsin-Madison Writing Center (2009). Writer's Handbook: Common Writing Assignments: Review of LIterature

Books from the Catalog

Here are a select list of books about conducting literature reviews.

• << Previous: Data Management
• Last Updated: Aug 12, 2024 3:34 PM
• URL: https://campusguides.lib.utah.edu/geo

Geology: Literature Review

• Literature Review
• Related Databases
• Selected Journals in Geology
• Geological news
• Associations and Societies

Encyclopedias & Dictionaries

Use Encyclopedias :

• when starting a project
• for summaries
• for lists of further reading

Find more on the catalog by searching for "chemistry encyclopedias".

Search the Library Catalog

Other resources.

The following websites provide some useful material on literature reviews :

• How to write a literature review
• The literature review
• The literature review - a few tips on conducting it
• The literature review - academic tip sheet

Library Research

Useful Reference Works - Selected Titles

• << Previous: Home
• Next: Books >>
• Last Updated: Apr 1, 2024 3:32 PM
• URL: https://umlibguides.um.edu.my/geology

• Literature Reviews
• Annotated Bibliographies
• Articles & Journals
• Books & Ebooks
• GIS & Data Resources This link opens in a new window
• Citing & Writing Help

ImagesLitReviews

Help for those preparing a literature review.

The following resources give tips on how to prepare a review of the literature -- an important step in a research project because it helps clarify what's already known about a topic. For additional help, please contact us.

• Literature Reviews Descriptive overview of the process of writing a literature review. A light, breezy style makes it easy to read while covering the topic in-depth. Writing Center, Univ. of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
• Write a Literature Review A concise overview of a literature review's components and purpose; Univ. Libraries, Univ. of Southern California, Santa Cruz

Literature Reviews: An Overview for Graduate Students

(9:38) Addresses the function and utility of reviews of the scholarly literature as well as the process of preparing a literature review. North Carolina State Univ. Libraries

• << Previous: Background Info
• Next: Annotated Bibliographies >>
• Last Updated: May 21, 2024 2:10 PM
• URL: https://uhcl.libguides.com/GEOG

GEOL 360: Fundamentals of the Lithosphere: Types of Geologic Literature

• A Survey of Geologic Literature

Journal Articles

Gray literature.

• Background Information
• Searching the Literature: Peer reviewed articles
• Searching the Literature: Gray Literature
• Searching the Literature: Online Sources
• Getting access to a source
• Citing Sources
• Questions? We can help!

There are two types of scholarly journal articles that you are likely to come across, research articles (sometimes called primary sources) and review articles.  Both of these types of articles are peer-reviewed, and both types tend to look the same at first glance: they have an abstract and introduction, a concluding section, and a bibliography.

Both research and review articles are usually published in what are referred to as peer-reviewed journals.  You might also hear the term "scholarly journal" or "refereed journal", these all refer to the same thing.

The goal of peer review is to have other experts (reviewers) assess the quality of the research and the article before it is published.  During the peer-review process, reviewers will:

• assess the validity of the research methods and procedures
• evaluate the article for quality and accuracy
• provide feedback and comments for the authors

The peer-review process is intensive and lengthy. It means that new research can take a while before it's published, but it also provides an assurance of best research practices.

Research articles

Research articles are generally the main way that new research results and interpretations are communicated in the field of geology.  Research articles will focus on one study to answer a research question.  These articles tend to be very narrowly-focused and written for geologists in that particular field.  Research articles are usually published in scholarly journals, but are sometimes collected in edited volumes (see below).

Identifying Research Articles

  Some of the main features of a research article are:

• The abstracts often talk about performing a study or conducting an investigation.
• There will probably be a literature review in the introductory section of the paper, but that is to provide context and is not the main focus.  .
• Methods section that explains how the research was conducted
• Results section that talks about all the data collected and a discussion of those results

Example: Grasemann, B. and Stüwe, K., 2001,  The development of flanking folds during simple shear and their use as kinematic indicators : Journal of Structural Geology, v. 23, p. 715-725, doi:10.1016/S0191-8141(00)00108-5.

Notice in the abstract, they start off explaining the modeling methods they use in the study. They describe a narrow question and how they answered it.  This is indicative of a research article where they are reporting their original results of research.

Review Articles

Review articles, sometimes called literature reviews, pull together the research and conclusion of many research articles on the same topic.  The review article synthesizes and analyzes those studies and summarizes the current state of research and suggests directions for future reearch.

Review articles are a great way to get a better understanding of the existing research on a topic, identify research questions you would like to explore and find relevant sources.

Identifying Review Articles

In review articles:

• Many (not all) have the word "review" in the title or the abstract or the journal title.
• The abstracts often talk about summarizing existing evidence
• The articles often do not include a methods section, or if there is a methods section, the section discusses how the literature was found.
• The focus is often on summarizing and analyzing a broad set of questions related to a research area.
• The bibliographies tend to be very long and comprehensive

Gray literature is kind of a "catch all" term that refers to types of research that are either unpublished or have been published in noncommercial forms.  While some gray literature is available on the web, be aware that some may be hard to get a hold of.

Gray literature can be very important in geology, so it's a good idea to understand what is out there and how to find it.

Examples of gray literature include:

• Government reports, including national and state geological survey reports
• Conference proceedings
• Geological and geophysical surveys
• Industry reports
• Field trip guide books

Advantages of Gray Literature

• Timeliness: Results of studies may appear in gray literature 12 to 18 months before being published via traditional channels.
• Flexibility: Rather than waiting years for the publication of a revised edition, authors, editors, and web content creators can update the information when needed.
• Accessibility: There is a great abundance of gray literature that is freely available, either in print or on the web.

Disadvantages of Gray Literature

• Credibility: Since gray literature is rarely peer-reviewed, it can be harder to assess its reliability.  
• Accessibility: While much of the gray literature is available on the web, some pieces may be difficult to find. This is especially true for field trip books
• Findability: Much of the gray literature is not indexed in library catalogs or databases, so even if it is available on the web, it can be hard to find.

A lot of geologic information is shared on websites.  When you're looking for websites, you'll want to think critically about who is responsible for that website and whether that makes them a credible source.  This isn't always easy as some websites don't share that information, so you may need to dig a bit.

Generally, government agencies that are responsible for geologic information, professional geologic societies, and geology departments at universities are considered credible sources.

You can categorize scholarly geology books into two main categories: edited volumes and monographs.

Edited Volumes:

These books function more as collections of research articles around a single topic.  You will notice that the volume will have an editor or editors, and each chapter is written by a different group of authors.  The editors are experts in the topic who organize but do not write each chapter.  Each chapter will look like a research article that you would find in a journal, with an abstract, methodology, results, conclusions, and a bibliography.  Many of these undergo peer-review.

Monographs:

Monographs are full books written on a topic, usually with one or just a few authors.  Unlike the edited volumes that pull together related works all written by different people, the chapters in the monograph are all written by the same authors and are generally meant to be read as a whole.  The authors are experts in the area, but they're not reporting new research results.  Instead, they are providing a more comprehensive overview of the topic.  Books like these can give you a good broad understanding of a topic, but they will not have the latest research because monographs can take quite a long time to publish.

Associate Director | Research, Education & Engagement

• << Previous: A Survey of Geologic Literature
• Next: Search Strategies >>
• Last Updated: May 10, 2024 12:08 PM
• URL: https://libguides.stthomas.edu/GEOL360

© 2023 University of St. Thomas, Minnesota

Environment, Geology, and Natural Resources

• Recommended research tools (databases, etc.)
• Internet Resources
• Literature Reviews
• Annotated Bibliographies
• Find It@ BALL STATE, Citation Linker, OneSearch, & DOI
• Interlibrary Loan (ILL)

Literature Review Webinar (BSU faculty)

This is a webinar for the Fall 2019 Literature Review Webinar.  

Where can I find theses projects (many would include a literature review)?

F or projects done at BSU, use Cardinal Scholar , found on the Databases page.  You can login and then choose which Ball State Theses and Dissertations from the communities in Cardinal Scholar.  When looking for projects, search using the department or advisor unless you know the name of the author.

Google Books

Search for books and if you cannot get access to the chapters, use OneSearch to see if it's at BSU.  Be sure to limit the search by choosing Library Catalog and Book/eBook on the left side.  If you cannot find what you're looking for, use Interlibrary Loan and request the book from another library.

Examples from beyond BSU

• Univ of North Carolina-Chapel Hill Gives information about what a literature review is, prewriting, writing strategies, organization, etc.
• Literature Review Tutorial Amercian University Library has put together a tutorial covering what a lit review is, why do a lit review, sample of a lit review, checklist, and more.
• University of Wisconsin-Madison Review of Literature Provides information about the writing process.
• Many links to resources This is a listing of several different resources for writing a literature review
• << Previous: Internet Resources
• Next: Annotated Bibliographies >>
• Last Updated: Aug 9, 2024 8:22 AM
• URL: https://bsu.libguides.com/environmentgeologynatlrescs

Geology Writing Guide

• What kind of paper do you need to write?
• Developing Your Topic
• Geology Research Guide
• Evaluating Search Results

Evaluating Sources

• Interlibrary Loan
• How to Read a Journal Article
• Citing Sources
• Introduction
• Tips for Writing

A successful research project begins with a search of the literature.   As you discover sources, you will need to evaluate their relevance, credibility, and reliability. You will need scholarly sources to support your ideas and reference in your paper.

Start by reading your assignment carefully.  Understand what your professor’s expectations are regarding the types of sources you should be using.  In most cases, you will be expected to use scholarly research literature, sometimes referred to as the primary literature; it represents the results of original research (i.e. new information contributed to the discipline).  This is the literature scientists use to communicate their results to other researchers.

Note: As we said in the Developing a Topic portion of this guide, you may want to read more popular works to explore a topic, sources like websites, blogs, magazines, your textbook, etc.  However, these are examples of secondary literature (summaries of the primary literature) and will not be appropriate to cite in your paper.

Scientists communicate the results of their research to one another using several types of primary literature.  Recognizing this literature will help you identify scholarly works.  The following are the types of scholarly works that would be appropriate for your paper:

Journal Articles:

The most common type of primary literature is scholarly research journals, sometimes referred to as academic journals.  They publish scholarly research in the form of articles that are often peer reviewed (i.e. articles that have been reviewed and critiqued by the author’s peers in their area of research).  Key characteristics that can help you recognize a scholarly research article are as follows:

• Scholarly works will clearly identify the author(s) and provide you with information about their “authority” to communicate the information.  Look for information about an author’s degrees and/or institutional affiliation.  They will have a PhD or other higher degree in their field of interest and are typically from an academic institution or respected research organization.

Organization of the information

• These articles will typically follow the format of a scientific paper as outlined in the beginning of this writing guide: Abstract, Introduction, Method, Results, Discussion, and Conclusion.
• The author(s) of a research paper will have done a comprehensive search of the literature related to their work and cited this literature in their article, particularly in the Introduction where they are putting their work in the context of what has previously been done by others.

Examples of scholarly journals in Geology

Review articles:.

Review articles are also published in journals but, unlike research articles that discuss a specific research study, review articles summarize a collection of published literature about a particular topic.  Their benefit is that they can show the progress of research over time, help make connections between the works of different researchers, and suggest opportunities for future research.  In a review article, the author has already identified and pulled together a lot of literature for you.

Report literature:

The report literature can come from government agencies as part of their organizational mission and from private research organizations contracted by a sponsoring government agency.  This literature may not be peer reviewed, but should receive oversight by senior research associates within the organization.

Peer review of U.S. Geological Survey publications

Scholarly books:

Some book literature can also be a source of scholarly work.  Here are two examples:

• University presses and professional association publishers - Books published by academic institutions or professional organizations (e.g. Harvard University Press, U.S. Geological Survey, or Geological Society of America) will have authors who are scholars or researchers.  
• Edited books - Edited books will have one or more editors who have compiled a collection of papers written by different authors.  The papers will typically be scholarly in nature.

Other helpful sites:

• Popular Literature vs. Scholarly Peer-Reviewed Literature: What's the Difference? – Rutgers University
• Criteria to Evaluate the Credibility of Non-Web-based Sources - George Mason University - Good intro
• Harvard Guide to Using Sources - Evaluating Sources
• Evaluating Information – Applying the CRAAP Test - California State University @ Chico
• Source Evaluation Checklist - Cornell University
• Evaluating Sources for Credibility - NCSU Libraries - video
• Evaluating Sources - Johns Hopkins University
• Evaluating sources - Colorado State University
• << Previous: Evaluating Search Results
• Next: Interlibrary Loan >>
• Last Updated: Jul 7, 2023 3:30 PM
• URL: https://libraryguides.oswego.edu/c.php?g=587313

• OU Homepage
• OU Social Media
• The University of Oklahoma

Finding OU dissertations - Using the ShareOK repository

The ShareOK repository provides electronic full text of dissertations written by OU doctoral students. Currently, more than 6000 OU dissertations are included, and this number increases every semester as additional students complete their doctoral work.

Search tips

If you're looking for dissertations written by students in your discipline, enter the name of your department or program in the search box, in quotation marks -- for example, "Department of Economics" or "School of Geology and Geophysics."

If you're looking for dissertations supervised by a particular faculty member, enter their name in the search box -- for example, "Tom Boyd" or "Jill Irvine."

For more information, visit the ShareOK Guide .

Finding dissertations - Using Dissertation Abstracts

Almost every dissertation includes a literature review section or chapter. To find examples of dissertations in your discipline, use the Dissertation Abstracts database, accessible through the OU Libraries web site.

Dissertation Abstracts provides complete PDF full text for most dissertations published after 1997 at most universities in the United States and Canada and major universities in more than 90 other countries.

Use quotation marks to search for exact phrases. For example, searching for library anxiety retrieves more than 250,000 results, because it retrieves records that contain both the word "library" and the word "anxiety." But searching for "library anxiety" in quotation marks retrieves only 250 results, because it looks for the exact phrase "library anxiety."

To narrow your results further, add a word or phrase in the second search line (such as "quantitative methods," as shown in the example below).

Literature Review Example/Sample

Detailed Walkthrough + Free Literature Review Template

If you’re working on a dissertation or thesis and are looking for an example of a strong literature review chapter , you’ve come to the right place.

In this video, we walk you through an A-grade literature review from a dissertation that earned full distinction . We start off by discussing the five core sections of a literature review chapter by unpacking our free literature review template . This includes:

• The literature review opening/ introduction section
• The theoretical framework (or foundation of theory)
• The empirical research
• The research gap
• The closing section

We then progress to the sample literature review (from an A-grade Master’s-level dissertation) to show how these concepts are applied in the literature review chapter. You can access the free resources mentioned in this video below.

PS – If you’re working on a dissertation, be sure to also check out our collection of dissertation and thesis examples here .

FAQ: Literature Review Example

Literature review example: frequently asked questions, is the sample literature review real.

Yes. The literature review example is an extract from a Master’s-level dissertation for an MBA program. It has not been edited in any way.

Can I replicate this literature review for my dissertation?

As we discuss in the video, every literature review will be slightly different, depending on the university’s unique requirements, as well as the nature of the research itself. Therefore, you’ll need to tailor your literature review to suit your specific context.

You can learn more about the basics of writing a literature review here .

Where can I find more examples of literature reviews?

The best place to find more examples of literature review chapters would be within dissertation/thesis databases. These databases include dissertations, theses and research projects that have successfully passed the assessment criteria for the respective university, meaning that you have at least some sort of quality assurance. 

The Open Access Thesis Database (OATD) is a good starting point. 

How do I get the literature review template?

You can access our free literature review chapter template here .

Is the template really free?

Yes. There is no cost for the template and you are free to use it as you wish. 

Psst… there’s more!

This post is an extract from our bestselling short course, Literature Review Bootcamp . If you want to work smart, you don't want to miss this .

What will it take for you to guide me in my Ph.D research work?

Thank you so much for all this information. I am unable to download the literature review template and the excel worksheet. When I click the button it takes me to the top of the page. I would really love to use this template, thank you again!

Submit a Comment Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

• Print Friendly

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

• View all journals
• Explore content
• About the journal
• Publish with us
• Sign up for alerts
• NEWS FEATURE
• 14 August 2024

Geology’s biggest mystery: when did plate tectonics start to reshape Earth?

• Michael Marshall 0

Michael Marshall is a science journalist in Devon, UK.

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Illustration by Karol Banach

You have full access to this article via your institution.

Earth’s outer shell suffered a catastrophic break on 6 February last year, when a major fault came to life in southern Turkey. The Anatolian peninsula suddenly lurched to the southwest by as much as 11 metres relative to the Arabian peninsula. Nearly 60,000 people died in one of the most devastating earthquakes of modern times .

An earthquake such as this occurs because Earth’s crust is divided into shifting tectonic plates . The forces behind plate tectonics play a part in determining nearly everything about Earth, from its climate to the evolution of life.

What Turkey’s earthquake tells us about the science of seismic forecasting

Despite its importance, plate tectonics has remained somewhat of a mystery. Since the early twenty-first century, geologists have been gathering data in search of answers as to when and how plate tectonics began. But these studies have produced a mess of often-contradictory results. “You can have 30 people with 30 different specialisms and we will probably come up with 30 different numbers,” says petrologist Michael Brown at the University of Maryland in College Park.

“It is remarkable, the level of uncertainty over the start time of the process that controls the Earth system today and makes for our habitable planet,” says Peter Cawood at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. The uncertainty is so great that it extends across 85% of the planet’s 4.5-billion-year history, he says.

However, a consensus is slowly starting to take shape. Sifting through years of data, researchers are finding ways to make sense of the various analyses. Although many uncertainties remain, the history of plate tectonics is finally coming into view.

Hidden history

Since the 1960s, geoscientists have recognized that Earth’s outer shell — the lithosphere — is not one single solid piece, but a series of rocky plates that jostle against each other and gradually change position. Over millions of years, oceans widen and narrow, and continents move around the world, sometimes fusing to form vast supercontinents. Older parts of plates sink into Earth’s interior, where they get recycled. The rock mixes with other parts of the planet’s mantle — the semi-molten layer beneath the crust.

Why the Tongan eruption will go down in the history of volcanology

“Earth is the only planet we know that has plate tectonics,” says geologist Nadja Drabon at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It might not be a coincidence that Earth is also the only planet known to harbour life: the constant shuffling and recycling of rocks and minerals releases nutrients into the oceans and creates habitats for life. “That’s really important for Earth’s habitability.”

When Earth formed 4.5 billion years ago, it was much hotter than today: the newborn Earth probably had a magma ocean rather than a solid surface, perhaps something similar to the planet 55 Cancri e, which has been studied by the James Webb Space Telescope . Eventually, the crust cooled, solidified and then broke up into plates that began jostling against each other and migrating around the surface. The big question is: when did all of that happen?

There’s little hope of finding direct evidence from this period because most of the rocks formed in those early days have long since been subducted into Earth’s interior, where they were melted and crushed. The Hadean eon, from Earth’s formation more than 4.5 billion years ago until 4 billion years ago, is the most obscure of all. “There’s no rock record from the Hadean,” says Brown. All that is left are tiny crystals called zircons, which are remnants of those Hadean rocks that later became incorporated into younger rocks.

The geological record of the subsequent Archean eon, which lasted until 2.5 billion years ago, is better but still fragmentary. “Only about 5% of rocks exposed at the surface today are Archean in age,” says Drabon.

Mount St Helens in Washington State erupted catastrophically in 1980. Along with Mount Hood in the background, it is part of a string of volcanoes that formed over a subducting plate. Credit: Bettmann/Getty

Despite this challenge, geologists have been able to glean that conditions were different in the Archean. “Parts of the rock record are completely different,” says Brown. The chemistry of the surviving rocks indicates that the mantle was hotter in the Archean 1 : “It’s probably at least 100 °C warmer and it may be as much as 250 °C” than it is today. That means the crust was also warmer, and therefore softer and less dense.

Such conditions aren’t compatible with the kind of plate tectonics seen on today’s planet, which require rigid plates that are dense enough to sink into the mantle at a subduction zone. The implication was that the young Earth did not have plate tectonics as we understand them today. Quite what it had instead is unclear. One possibility is a ‘stagnant lid’: a crust divided into plates that didn’t move much. Alternatively, instead of moving sideways as is the case today, the plates might have shifted up and down, buffeted by upwellings of hot rock.

Geologists have long tried to get a handle on when a more recognizable form of plate tectonics started, by looking for signs of subduction. The trouble is that the available data have pointed in many directions. “None of it provides an unequivocal smoking gun,” says Cawood.

Written in stone

In the past ten years, however, a consensus has been emerging. A key transition seemed to happen around three billion years ago: multiple lines of evidence indicate that the tectonic regime changed profoundly at this time. For example, a 2016 study found that the composition of the crust started to alter around three billion years ago 2 . Older rocks were mafic: they contained lots of magnesium and iron and were dense. However, by 2.5 billion years ago, rocks were more felsic, meaning they contained more silica and were less dense. The lower density meant that the plates could carry thick continents without sinking. Crucially, felsic rocks form only in the presence of water and heat. Today these rocks are created in subduction zones, so the emergence of felsic rocks between 3 billion and 2.5 billion years ago implies subduction was under way.

PastCast: Plate tectonics – the unifying theory of Earth sciences

“This is well studied,” says geophysicist Johanna Salminen at the University of Helsinki. Several lines of evidence point to a significant shift around three billion years ago, she says. For instance, metal isotopes in preserved rocks indicate that the modern continental crust began forming at this time 3 . However, other work has pointed to even earlier transitions. In 2017, a study found evidence of felsic rocks as early as 3.5 billion years ago, potentially pushing back the onset of subduction 4 . In line with that, a 2022 palaeomagnetic study found evidence that tectonic plates were moving horizontally at near-modern speeds 3.25 billion years ago 5 .

That same year, Drabon and her colleagues pushed back the time frame even further. They studied zircon crystals from the Barberton Greenstone Belt in South Africa. Zircons that were more than 3.8 billion years old held traces of an extremely long-lived crust that had escaped melting for hundreds of millions of years, indicating that there was little or no subduction happening at that time. However, zircons less than 3.8 billion years old seemed to have been part of a younger crust, one that had been reworked through subduction 6 .

Several studies point to subduction well before 3 billion years ago, possibly even 3.8 billion years ago. But there is substantial debate about how widespread this early subduction was. “I think it’s a question of when you believe you can first see it as a global phenomenon,” says Brown. Much of the early evidence of subduction seems to reflect localized or short-lived processes, he says.

Some episodes of subduction might have been triggered by meteorite impacts, according to simulations of such strikes 7 . And a 2022 study of the Archean continental crust concluded that subduction was localized until at least 2.7 billion years ago 8 .

By contrast, true plate tectonics is global and continuous. Hard evidence of that only emerges around 2.2 billion years ago, Brown says. That’s when the oldest known supercontinent, dubbed Nuna or Columbia, was forming — reflecting a global process 9 .

Yet, even after that, the system kept changing. Rocks such as blueschists can form only when subducted rock is both dense and cold, and therefore sinks deep into the mantle. They appear in the rock record only about 800 million years ago, suggesting to some researchers that modern plate tectonics didn’t get going until then.

Step changes

To make sense of the emerging evidence, Cawood and his colleagues set out a possible scenario in 2022, in which they described seven phases of Earth history. The phases were all of different durations, ranging from more than 100 million to one billion years. Each was characterized by a particular mix of rock types, reflecting changes in the behaviour of the crust and mantle. The team identified everything that happened after 2.5–1.8 billion years ago as operating in “a plate tectonic framework” 10 (see ‘An origin story for plate tectonics’).

“I was really excited when I read that paper,” says Drabon. Although the exact details of the stages remain “a little bit up in the air”, she says, “I think they’re on the right track.”

Drabon’s team added new insights in a study published in May. She and her colleagues found evidence of deformed rocks from between 3.4 billion and 3.3 billion years ago, indicating that mountains were being formed then 11 .

And in a review published in July, Cawood and his colleagues gathered yet more evidence that a “primitive form of subduction”, which was short-lived and localized, operated in the Archean. Between 2.8 billion and 2.6 billion years ago, these isolated subduction zones gradually linked up to form a global network 12 .

What’s new is the agreement that the onset of plate tectonics was a process that played out in multiple stages over a long time. “It’s not a light switch,” says Brown. “It’s not a switch where we go from not-plate-tectonics to plate tectonics.”

Nature 632 , 490-492 (2024)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-024-02602-3

Hasenstab, E. et al. Earth Planet. Sci. Lett. 553 , 116627 (2021).

Article   Google Scholar  

Tang, M., Chen, K. & Rudnick, R. L. Science 351 , 372–375 (2016).

Article   PubMed   Google Scholar  

Dhuime, B., Wuestefeld, A. & Hawkesworth, C. J. Nature Geosci. 8 , 552–555 (2015).

Greber, N. D. et al. Science 357 , 1271–1274 (2017).

Brenner, A. R., Fu, R. R., Kylander-Clark, A. R. C., Hudak, G. J. & Foley, B. J. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 119 , e2210258119 (2022).

Drabon, N. et al. AGU Adv . 3 , e2021AV000520 (2022).

O’Neill, C., Marchi, S., Zhang, S. & Bottke, W. Nature Geosci . 10 , 793–797 (2017).

Huang, G., Mitchell, R. N., Palin, R. M., Spencer, C. J. & Guo, J. Nature Commun. 13 , 6553 (2022).

Brown, M., Johnson, T. & Gardiner, N. J. Annu. Rev. Earth Planet. Sci. 48 , 291–320 (2020).

Cawood, P. A. et al. Rev. Geophys. 60 , e2022RG000789 (2022).

Drabon, N., Kirkpatrick, H. M., Byerly, G. R. & Wooden, J. L. Geochim. Cosmochim. Acta 373 , 136–150 (2024).

Nebel, O. et al. Precambrian Res. 408 , 107431 (2024).

Download references

Reprints and permissions

Related Articles

• Solid Earth sciences

Dinosaur-killing Chicxulub asteroid formed in Solar System’s outer reaches

News 15 AUG 24

Stonehenge’s enigmatic centre stone was hauled 800 kilometres from Scotland

News 14 AUG 24

A Scottish provenance for the Altar Stone of Stonehenge

Article 14 AUG 24

Deepest-ever samples of rock from Earth’s mantle unveiled

News 08 AUG 24

Inner core backtracking by seismic waveform change reversals

Article 12 JUN 24

Space weather can affect our daily lives — we need a better warning system

World View 11 JUN 24

Fault-network geometry influences earthquake frictional behaviour

Article 05 JUN 24

Seismological evidence for a multifault network at the subduction interface

Article 17 APR 24

Faculty Positions in Center of Bioelectronic Medicine, School of Life Sciences, Westlake University

SLS invites applications for multiple tenure-track/tenured faculty positions at all academic ranks.

Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China

School of Life Sciences, Westlake University

Faculty Positions, Aging and Neurodegeneration, Westlake Laboratory of Life Sciences and Biomedicine

Applicants with expertise in aging and neurodegeneration and related areas are particularly encouraged to apply.

Westlake Laboratory of Life Sciences and Biomedicine (WLLSB)

Faculty Positions in Chemical Biology, Westlake University

We are seeking outstanding scientists to lead vigorous independent research programs focusing on all aspects of chemical biology including...

Assistant Professor Position in Genomics

The Lewis-Sigler Institute at Princeton University invites applications for a tenure-track faculty position in Genomics.

Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, US

The Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics at Princeton University

Associate or Senior Editor, BMC Medical Education

Job Title: Associate or Senior Editor, BMC Medical Education Locations: New York or Heidelberg (Hybrid Working Model) Application Deadline: August ...

New York City, New York (US)

Springer Nature Ltd

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Quick links

• Explore articles by subject
• Guide to authors
• Editorial policies

• UWF Libraries

Literature Review: Conducting & Writing

• Sample Literature Reviews
• Steps for Conducting a Lit Review
• Finding "The Literature"
• Organizing/Writing
• APA Style This link opens in a new window
• Chicago: Notes Bibliography This link opens in a new window
• MLA Style This link opens in a new window

Sample Lit Reviews from Communication Arts

Have an exemplary literature review.

• Literature Review Sample 1
• Literature Review Sample 2
• Literature Review Sample 3

Have you written a stellar literature review you care to share for teaching purposes?

Are you an instructor who has received an exemplary literature review and have permission from the student to post?

Please contact Britt McGowan at [email protected] for inclusion in this guide. All disciplines welcome and encouraged.

• << Previous: MLA Style
• Next: Get Help! >>
• Last Updated: Aug 8, 2024 11:00 AM
• URL: https://libguides.uwf.edu/litreview

Information

• Author Services

Initiatives

You are accessing a machine-readable page. In order to be human-readable, please install an RSS reader.

All articles published by MDPI are made immediately available worldwide under an open access license. No special permission is required to reuse all or part of the article published by MDPI, including figures and tables. For articles published under an open access Creative Common CC BY license, any part of the article may be reused without permission provided that the original article is clearly cited. For more information, please refer to https://www.mdpi.com/openaccess .

Feature papers represent the most advanced research with significant potential for high impact in the field. A Feature Paper should be a substantial original Article that involves several techniques or approaches, provides an outlook for future research directions and describes possible research applications.

Feature papers are submitted upon individual invitation or recommendation by the scientific editors and must receive positive feedback from the reviewers.

Editor’s Choice articles are based on recommendations by the scientific editors of MDPI journals from around the world. Editors select a small number of articles recently published in the journal that they believe will be particularly interesting to readers, or important in the respective research area. The aim is to provide a snapshot of some of the most exciting work published in the various research areas of the journal.

Original Submission Date Received: .

• Active Journals
• Find a Journal
• Proceedings Series
• For Authors
• For Reviewers
• For Editors
• For Librarians
• For Publishers
• For Societies
• For Conference Organizers
• Open Access Policy
• Institutional Open Access Program
• Special Issues Guidelines
• Editorial Process
• Research and Publication Ethics
• Article Processing Charges
• Testimonials
• Preprints.org
• SciProfiles
• Encyclopedia

Article Menu

• Subscribe SciFeed
• Recommended Articles
• Google Scholar
• on Google Scholar
• Table of Contents

Find support for a specific problem in the support section of our website.

Please let us know what you think of our products and services.

Visit our dedicated information section to learn more about MDPI.

JSmol Viewer

Ecology of intertidal rocky shores related to examples of coastal geology across phanerozoic time.

Graphical Abstract

1. Introduction

2. background on coastal geography and geology, 3. operational definitions and study methods, 4.1. review of granite rocky shores and biotas with different climates by latitude, 4.1.1. mount desert island (maine, usa), 4.1.2. mahé and praslin islands in the republic of seychelles, 4.1.3. lizard island in the great barrier reef off queensland, australia, 4.2. clues to potential fossilization from beach deposits, 4.2.1. analysis of sand beach on mount desert island, maine, 4.2.2. beachrock on palfrey island in a subtropical setting, 4.3. review of pre-historic rocky-shore biotas from the fossil record, 4.3.1. analysis of phanerozoic rocky shore publications, 4.3.2. review of phanerozoic rocky shore studies on paleoislands, 5. discussion, role of external factors in the physical environment, 6. conclusions.

• The available habitat of rocky shores accessible by intertidal life has varied through geologic time as moderated by the mechanics of plate tectonics. A single large continent like Pangaea 250 million years ago offered a reduced shoreline compared with the wide dispersal of many and much smaller continents as today. The paucity of Triassic rocky shores that remain to be detected in the geologic record is related, in part, to this scenario in plate tectonics.
• The hard substrate of a rocky shoreline is foundational on any kind of igneous, metamorphic, or sedimentary rock. However, igneous rocks like granite or basalt with greater hardness and higher density wear better against erosion and make a more stable home for colonizing organisms, which are able to colonize and recolonize at a faster rate than rock recession.
• Changes in global sea level through geologic time have influenced the location of rocky shores, often most prominent along continental margins but also appearing in epicontinental settings far inland during intervals of high sea level.
• Marine invertebrates and many algae are capable of attachment to a rocky shore by direct cementation or other means, whereas mobile forms adhere by suction of a strong muscular “foot” or by wedging into crevices or other irregularities in the rock surface. Some bivalves and sponges are capable of rock boring. All such groups have a distinct paleontological record.
• Available data show a steady increase in the number of such marine invertebrates and certain marine algae across geologic time, although membership was modified by the intervention of mass extinctions that affected life in other ecosystems, as well. Latitudinal temperature gradients appear to have varied through geologic time, meaning that analogous diversity gradients from tropical to more temperate settings may have been less pronounced than today.
• The preservation of rocky-shore species as fossils in their original growth position on a rock substrate is more commonly encountered than once assumed and was typically mediated by sudden catastrophic events ending in burial by rapid rates of rising sea level, storm deposits, or volcanic ejecta such as ash or coarser tephra.

Acknowledgments

Conflicts of interest.

• National Geographic Atlas of the World, 11th ed.; National Geographic Society: Washington, DC, USA, 2019; 448p.
• Bird, C.F.; Schwartz, M.L. The World’s Coastline ; Van Nostrand Reinhold: New York, NY, USA, 1985; 1071p. [ Google Scholar ]
• Carson, R. The Edge of the Sea ; Houghton Mifflin Co.: Boston, MA, USA, 1955; 276p. [ Google Scholar ]
• Hecker, R.F. Introduction to Paleoecology ; American Elsevier Publishing Co.: New York, NY, USA, 1966; 166p. [ Google Scholar ]
• Selden, P.; Nudds, J. Evolution of Fossil Ecosystems ; University of Chicago Press: Chicago, IL, USA, 2004; 160p. [ Google Scholar ]
• Zakharov, D.O.; Bindeman, I.N. Triple oxygen and hydrogen isotopic study of hydrothermally altered rocks from the 2.43–2.41 Ga Vetreny belt, Russia: An insight into the early Paleoprterozoic seawater. Geochem. Colsmochim. Acta 2019 , 248 , 185–209. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Bindeman, I.N.; O’Neil, J. Earth’s earliest hydrosphere recorded by the oldest hydrothermally-altered oceanic crust: Triple oxygen and hydrogen isotopes in the 4.3–3.8 Ga Nuvvuagittuq belt, Canada. Earth Planet. Sci. Lett. 2022 , 586 , 117539. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Byerly, G.R.; Lower, D.R.; Walsh, M.M. Stromatolites from the 3300–3500-Myr Swaziland Supergroup, Barberton Mountain Land, South Africa. Nature 1986 , 319 , 489–491. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Logan, B.W. Cryptozoon and associated stromatolites from the recent, Shark Bay, Western Australia. J. Geol. 1961 , 69 , 517–533. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Johnson, M.E.; Baarli, B.G. Development of intertidal biotas through Phanerozoic time, pp. 63–128. In Earth and Life ; Talent, J.A., Ed.; Springer Science+Business Media: Dordrecht, The Netherlands, 2012; 1100p. [ Google Scholar ]
• Emery, K.O.; Kuhn, G.G. Sea cliffs: Their processes, profiles, and classification. Geol. Soc. Am. Bull. 1982 , 93 , 644–654. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Bird, E.C.F. Coastal Geomorphology: An Introduction ; John Wiley & Sons: Chichester, UK, 2008; 448p. [ Google Scholar ]
• Johnson, M.E. Why are ancient rocky shores so uncommon? J. Geol. 1988 , 96 , 469–480. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Deny, M.W. Biology and the Mechanics of the Wave-Swept Environment ; Princeton University Press: Princeton, NJ, USA, 1998; 329p. [ Google Scholar ]
• Stephenson, T.A.; Stephenson, A. The universal features of zonation between tide-markes on rocky coasts. J. Ecol. 1949 , 37 , 289–305. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Sunamura, T. Geomorphologyu of Rocky Coasts ; John Wiley & Sons: Chichester, UK, 1992; 302p. [ Google Scholar ]
• Johnson, M.E. Islands in Deep Time: Ancient Landscapes Lost and Found ; Columbia University Press: New York, NY, USA, 2023; 312p. [ Google Scholar ]
• Twidale, R. Granite Landforms ; Elsevier: Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 1982; 372p. [ Google Scholar ]
• Twidale, R. The research frontier and beyond: Granitic terrains. Geomorphology 1993 , 7 , 187–223. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Brinkhurst, R.O.; Linkletter, L.E.; Lord, E.I.; Connors, S.A.; Dadswell, M.J. A Preliminary Guide to the Littoral and Sublittoral Marine Invertebrates of Passamaquddy Bay ; Huntsman Marine Laboratory: St. Andrews, NB, Canada, 1976; 166p. [ Google Scholar ]
• Johnson, M.E.; Baarli, B.G. Erosion and burial of granite rocky shores in the Recent and Late Pleistocene of the Seychelles Islands: Physical and biological perspectives. J. Coast. Res. 2005 , 21 , 867–879. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Braithwaite, C.J.R. Geology of the Seychelles. In Biogeography and Ecology of the Seychelles Islands ; Stoddart, D.R., Ed.; W. Junk Publishers: The Hague, The Netherlands, 1984; pp. 17–38. [ Google Scholar ]
• Suwa, K.; Tokieda, K.; Hoshino, M. Palaeomagnetic and petrological reconstruction of the Seychelles. Precambrian Res. 1994 , 69 , 281–292. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Taylor, J.D. Coral reef and associated invertebrate communities (mainly molluscan) around Mahé, Seychelles. Philos. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. Ser. B Biol. Sci. 1968 , 254 , 129–206. [ Google Scholar ]
• Jerrett, A.G. Marine Shells of the Seychelles ; Carole Green Publishing: Cambridge, UK, 2000; 149p. [ Google Scholar ]
• Philipps, C.J.; Bellwood, D.R. The hydrodynamics of Lizard Island lagoon, Great Barrier Reef. Coral Reefs 2024 , 43 , 881–897. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Davey, K. Seashore Life of Australia ; New Holland Publishers: Sydney, Australia, 1998; 144p. [ Google Scholar ]
• Friedman, G.M. Breachrocks record Holocene events, including natural disasters. Carbonates Evaporites 2011 , 26 , 97–109. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Leonard, J.E.; Cameron, B.W. Origin of a high-latitude carbonate beach: Mt. Desert Island, Maine. Northeast. Geol. 1981 , 28 , 1–28. [ Google Scholar ]
• Barndhardt, W.W.; Kellley, J.T. Carbonate accumulation on the inner continental shelf of Maine; a modern consequence of late Quaternary glaciation and sea-level change. J. Sediment. Res. 1995 , 65 , 195–207. [ Google Scholar ]
• Dott, R.H., Jr. Cambrian tropical storm waves in Wisconsin. Geology 1974 , 2 , 243–246. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Eoff, J.D. Sequence stratigraphy of the Upper Cambrian (Furongian, Jiangshanian and Sunwaptan) Tunnel City Group, Upper Mississippi Valley: Transgressing assumptions of cratonic flooding. Sediment. Geol. 2014 , 302 , 87–101. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Johnson, M.E.; Wilson, M.A.; Redden, J.A. Borings in quartzite surf boulders from the Upper Cambrian basal Deadwood Formation, Black Hills of South Dakota. Ichnos 2010 , 17 , 48–55. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Johnson, M.E.; Baarli, B.G. Encrusting corals on a latest Ordovician to earliest Silurian rocky shore, southwest Hudson Bay, Manitoba, Canada. Geology 1987 , 15 , 15–17. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Nelson, S.J.; Johnson, M.E. Jens Munk Archipelago: Ordovician-Silurian islands in the Churchill area of the Hudson Bay Lowlands, Northern Manitoba. J. Geol. 2002 , 110 , 577–589. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Johnson, M.E.; Rong, J.Y.; Wang, C.Y.; Wang, P. Continental island from the Upper Silurian (Ludfordian Stage) of Inner Mongolia: Implications for eustasy and paleogeography. Geology 2001 , 29 , 955–958. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Rong, J.; Johnson, M.E.; Deng, Z.; Dong, D.; Yaosong, S.; Baarli, B.G.; Wang, G. Coral-stromatoporoid faunas from the shores of a late Silurian island, Inner Mongolia, North China. Mem. Assoc. Australas. Palaeontol. 2013 , 44 , 95–105. [ Google Scholar ]
• Johnson, M.E.; Webb, G.E. Outer rocky shores of the Mowanbini Archipelago, Devonian Reef Complex, Canning Basin, Western Australia. J. Geol. 2007 , 115 , 583–600. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Baarli, B.G.; Webb, G.; Johnson, M.E.; Cook, A.G.; Walsh, D.R. Shoal-water dynamics and coastal biozones in a sheltered-island setting: Upper Devonian Pillara Limestone (Western Australia). Lethaia 2016 , 49 , 507–523. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• De la Beche, H.T. On the Formation of the Rocks of South Wales and South Western England ; Memoirs of the Geological Survey of Great Britain; Geological Survey: London, England, 1846; pp. 1–2167. [ Google Scholar ]
• Johnson, M.E.; McKerrow, W.S. The Sutton Stone: An early Jurassic rocky shore deposit in South Wales. Palaeontology 1995 , 38 , 529–541. [ Google Scholar ]
• Johnson, M.E.; Ledesma-Vázquez, J.; Clark, H.C.; Zwiebel, J.A. Coastal evolution of Late Cretaceous and Pleistocene rocky shores: Pacific rim of northern Baja California, Mexico. Geol. Soc. Am. Bull. 1996 , 108 , 708–721. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Johnson, M.E.; Hayes, M.L. Dichotomous facies on a Late Cretaceous rocky island as related to wind and wave patterns (Baja California, Mexico). Palaios 1993 , 8 , 385–395. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Santos, A.; Mayoral, E.; da Silva, C.M.; Cahão, M.; Johnson, M.E.; Baarli, B.G. Miocene intertidal zonation on a volcanically active shoreline: Porto Santo in the Madeira Archipelago, Portugal. Lethaia 2011 , 44 , 26–32. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Rebelo, A.C.; Rasser, M.W.; Kroh, A.; Johnson, M.E.; Ramalho, R.S.; Melo, C.; Uchman, A.; Berning, B.; Silva, L.; Zanon, V.; et al. Rocking around a volcanic island shelf: Pliocene rhodolith beds from Malbusca, Santa Maria Island (Azores, NE Atlantic). Facies 2016 , 62 , 22. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Johnson, M.E.; Uchman, A.; Costa, P.J.M.; Ramalho, R.S.; Ávila, S.P. Intense hurricane transports sand onshore: Example from the Pliocene Malbusca section on Santa Maria Isalnd (Azores, Portugal). Mar. Geol. 2017 , 385 , 244–249. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Darwin, C. Geological Observations on the Volcanic Islands Visited during the Voyage of the H.M.S. Beagle., Together with Some Brief Notices on the Geology of Australia and the Cape of Good Hope. Being the Second Part of the Geology of the Voyage of the Beagle, under the Command of Capt. FitzRoy, RN.N. during the Years 1832 to 1836 ; Smith, Elder & Co.: London, UK, 1844; 175p. [ Google Scholar ]
• Baarli, B.G.; Santos, A.G.; Mayoral, E.J.; Ledesma-Vázquez, J.; Johnson, M.E.; da Silva, C.M.; Cachão, M. What darwin did not see: Pleistocene fossil assemblages on a high-energy coast at Ponta das Bicudas, Santiago, Cape Verde islands. Geol. Mag. 2013 , 150 , 83–189. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Wegener, A. The Origin of Continents and Oceans ; (first English edition translated from the third German edition); Methuen & Co., Ltd.: London, UK, 1924; 246p. [ Google Scholar ]
• Johnson, M.E. Uniformitarianism as a guide to rocky-shore ecosystems in the geological record. Can. J. Earth Sci. 2006 , 43 , 1119–1147. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Husson, J.M.; Peters, S.E. Nature of the sedimentary rock record and its implications for Earth System evolution. Emerg. Top. Life Sci. 2018 , 2 , 125–136. [ Google Scholar ] [ PubMed ]
• Marsaglia, K.M.; Klein, G.D. The paleogeography of Paleozoic and Mesozoic storm depositional systems. J. Geol. 1983 , 91 , 117–142. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Pietzsch, K. Geologie von Sahzen ; Veb Deutcher Verlag der Wissenschaften: Berlin, Germany, 1962; pp. 17–22. [ Google Scholar ]
• Surlyk, F.; Sørensen, A.M. An early Campanian rocky shore at Ivö Klack, southern Sweden. Cretac. Res. 2010 , 31 , 567–576. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Gale, A.S.; Sørensen, A.M. Taxonomy and palaeoecology of thoracican cirripedes (Crustacea) from a Campanian rocky shoreline at Ivö Klack, southern Sweden. Cretac. Res. 2015 , 54 , 212–242. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Wilson, M.; Taylor, P.D. Palaeoecology of hard substrate faunas from the Cretaceous Qahlah Formation of the Oman Mountains. Palaeontology 2001 , 44 , 21–41. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Zhang, L.; Hay, W.W.; Wang, C.; Gu, X. The evolution of latitudinal temperature gradients from the latest Cretaceous through the Presnt. Earth-Sci. Rev. 2019 , 189 , 147–158. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]

Click here to enlarge figure

Share and Cite

Johnson, M.E. Ecology of Intertidal Rocky Shores Related to Examples of Coastal Geology across Phanerozoic Time. J. Mar. Sci. Eng. 2024 , 12 , 1399. https://doi.org/10.3390/jmse12081399

Johnson ME. Ecology of Intertidal Rocky Shores Related to Examples of Coastal Geology across Phanerozoic Time. Journal of Marine Science and Engineering . 2024; 12(8):1399. https://doi.org/10.3390/jmse12081399

Johnson, Markes E. 2024. "Ecology of Intertidal Rocky Shores Related to Examples of Coastal Geology across Phanerozoic Time" Journal of Marine Science and Engineering 12, no. 8: 1399. https://doi.org/10.3390/jmse12081399

Article Metrics

Article access statistics, further information, mdpi initiatives, follow mdpi.

Subscribe to receive issue release notifications and newsletters from MDPI journals

We use cookies to enhance our website for you. Proceed if you agree to this policy or learn more about it.

• Essay Database >
• Essays Samples >
• Essay Types >
• Literature Review Example

Geology Literature Reviews Samples For Students

5 samples of this type

If you're seeking an applicable method to simplify writing a Literature Review about Geology, WowEssays.com paper writing service just might be able to help you out.

For starters, you should browse our large database of free samples that cover most diverse Geology Literature Review topics and showcase the best academic writing practices. Once you feel that you've analyzed the major principles of content organization and drawn actionable insights from these expertly written Literature Review samples, putting together your own academic work should go much smoother.

However, you might still find yourself in a situation when even using top-notch Geology Literature Reviews doesn't let you get the job accomplished on time. In that case, you can contact our writers and ask them to craft a unique Geology paper according to your custom specifications. Buy college research paper or essay now!

Applications Of Continuum Mechanics In Geology Literature Review

Literature review on origin of feathers in dinosaurs, introduction, mt. changbai literature review template for faster writing.

Don't waste your time searching for a sample.

Get your literature review done by professional writers!

Just from $10/page

Literature Review On Fracture Detection Using 3D Seismic Data

Literature review, robert smithson literature review sample.

Password recovery email has been sent to [email protected]

Use your new password to log in

You are not register!

By clicking Register, you agree to our Terms of Service and that you have read our Privacy Policy .

Now you can download documents directly to your device!

Check your email! An email with your password has already been sent to you! Now you can download documents directly to your device.

or Use the QR code to Save this Paper to Your Phone

The sample is NOT original!

Short on a deadline?

Don't waste time. Get help with 11% off using code - GETWOWED

No, thanks! I'm fine with missing my deadline