The site's most popular features, the Geology Dictionary and the Geologic Time Scale, have been completely updated and enhanced. Brand new to the site are the Mineral Identification Chart and the Landsat Satellite Image Tutorial. The site also includes vast collections of links to the best geology and earth science sites across the Web.
The Geology Dictionary (http://geology.com/geology-dictionary.shtml) provides definitions for over 500 of the most commonly used terms in geology, hydrology and earth science. "The major benefit of this feature is that students don't need to purchase a geology dictionary for a one-semester course since they now have easy access to one on the Web," says Geology.com owner Hobart King.
The Geologic Time Scale (http://geology.com/time.htm) covers the full 4.6 billion years of geologic time and can be downloaded for printing as a Microsoft Word file. Teachers can download and print for distribution in their classroom. "The Geologic Time Scale is especially useful because it is a Word document, which means teachers can easily revise it so that it is suitable for their curriculum needs," King says.
A new feature to the site, the Mineral Identification Chart (http://geology.com/minerals/mineral-identification.shtml) is a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet that students or teachers can print for use in the laboratory. For teachers, the most important feature of this resource is that it can easily be modified or expanded (like the Geologic Time Scale) to suit their teaching style or customized for the mineral specimens available in their classroom.
Also new to the site is the Landsat Satellite Image Tutorial (http://geology.com/satellite/), which explains how to interpret Landsat images in terms a beginner would understand; the tutorial also provides many images as examples. This tutorial pairs with a collection of Landsat images for all 50 states and detailed satellite images of nearly 100 of the most populous cities in the United States.
Most important is Geology.com's large collection of links to the best geology and earth science Web sites on a variety of topics, including: astronomy, astrology, earthquakes, energy, floods, geology jobs and careers, maps, satellite images, mineralogy, plate tectonics, petroleum, paleontology, geology tools and software, tsunamis, volcanoes and much more.