The Virtual Journal of Geobiology is available exclusively on the Web. It is a virtual journal in that it lists articles with a geobiological component recently published in a wide range of Elsevier Science journals. The articles are personally selected by the editor, Professor Lee Kump, on the basis of their potential to highlight interesting and important developments in the area of geobiology.
Geobiology is emerging as a new subject at the many interfaces between modern biology and the various fields of Earth and space sciences. Yet, there remains uncertainty and discussion about the origin of the current interest in this area. Has it to do with fashion or obtaining research funding, with breaking down barriers between traditional disciplines, or with attempts to revitalise Earth and planetary sciences in the universities? Is it a dynamic new field, a new name for an old subject, or just a short-lived excitement that will soon die away?
The purpose of this virtual journal is essentially twofold. Firstly, it provides users with an expert literature search for geobiology papers across the whole range of Elsevier's journals in Earth and planetary sciences. Secondly, these papers, together with the opinions and ideas available in the viewpoints section, provide users with a solid basis for reflection about the scope of geobiology today and for indicating possible lines for future research.
Access to this site of the Virtual Journal of Geobiolgy is free. The abstracts of the selected papers are freely available to all users on the ScienceDirect platform. The full text of the papers can be accessed if the user's institute has a ScienceDirect subscription or has registered for ScienceDirect Web Editions. For further information about Science Direct: http://www.sciencedirect.com.
New issues are published monthly.
Original manuscript submissions to the Virtual Journal of Geobiology are NOT accepted. However, an article may be selected for inclusion in the Virtual Journal of Geobiology if it falls within its scope and is published in one of the source journals. Those wishing to submit a manuscript to one of the source journals should follow the link to the list of source journals. Information on manuscript preparation and submission is available on the home pages of the source journals.
When citing an article that has appeared in this virtual journal, the source journal article should be cited - the virtual journal itself should NOT be cited. For a given virtual journal article, the appropriate full citation for the source journal article appears in the virtual journal table of contents entry and in the virtual journal abstract for that article. The article citation information is also found in the source journal resources to which the virtual journal points, including the full text of the article.