OpenTopography provides high-quality geographic data relating to earth science as well as a platform for researchers to share their own data. Based at the University of California, San Diego, OpenTopography is an ambitious project that "facilitates community access to high-resolution, Earth science-oriented, topography data, and related tools and resources," and is funded through the National...

Learning about the world of marine biology through a well-organized set of images can be quite revealing, and this digital collection from the Oregon Institute of Marine Biology is just right for the job. The collection includes over 7,000 images donated through the decades by faculty, students, visiting faculty, and those with "a passion for the local Coos Bay marine environment and the Oregon...

The U.S. Geological Survey Water Resources in Kansas presents its research on two major topics: "the fate, transport, and degradation of organic contaminants in the environment with special [focus] on nonpoint-source contamination from agricultural chemicals" and "the environmental issues of emerging contaminants and how they affect the water." After discovering the group's objectives and...

The USGS and NASA have teamed up to bring the public stunning images of the Earth taken by the Landsat-7 satellite and the Terra Satellite's Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER). Visitors can browse the images by continent or alphabetically. The images can be used as supplementary materials during educational lectures about rock outcrops, deserts, deltas, clouds,...

Those persons with a penchant for public policy, coastal erosion, and estuaries will sing the praises of the OzCoasts website. Formally launched in 2008, OzCoasts represents a collaborative effort between more than 100 coastal scientists from a range of government agencies and universities across Australia. The materials on the site are divided into six primary areas, including "Coastal...

The Oregon State University Libraries has created this wonderful collection of 1,000 different images taken between 1934 and 1945 that document 390 streams in the Columbia River Basin. The photographs were taken by U.S. Bureau of Fisheries researchers who were interested in the spawning and rearing habitats for spring Chinook salmon. Visitors can use the clickable map on the homepage to move...

The contents of the online Palaeontologia Electronica (PE), a journal of paleontology supported by eight paleontological organizations from around the world, can be accessed by clicking anywhere on its colorful "cover". The journal features commentary, articles, technical articles, and reviews of books. The text "(print)" appears next to the articles that can be downloaded or printed in PDF form....

Previously featured in The Scout Report in 2002, PANGAEA continues to be an extensive resource for earth and environmental scientists. This open access library aims to archive, publish, and distribute georeferenced data from earth system research. The vast majority of these datasets, collected from all around the world, are freely available for researchers and instructors to download and use. As...

Three decades after it was published, the Second Geological Survey of Pennsylvania was described as "the most remarkable series of reports ever issued by any survey." Considering the diversity of other geological reports, this was no small compliment. Drawing on support from the Marion and Kenneth Pollock Libraries Program Fund, the Pennsylvania State University Libraries' Digital Preservation...

This recently released report from the Pew Center on Global Climate Change "reviews the broad range of ecological changes that have occurred in response to human induced changes in the global and U.S. climate." The 67-page report, authored by Camille Parmesan of the University of Texas-Austin and Hector Galbraith of the University of Colorado-Boulder, is available in portable document format. The...