Aims and scope

Near Surface Geophysics is an international journal for the publication of research and development in geophysics applied to near surface. It places emphasis on geological, hydrogeological, geotechnical, environmental, engineering, mining, archaeological, agricultural and other applications of geophysics as well as physical soil and rock properties. Geophysical and geoscientific case histories with innovative use of geophysical techniques are welcome, which may include improvements on instrumentation, measurements, data acquisition and processing, modelling, inversion, interpretation, project management and multidisciplinary use. The papers should also be understandable to those who use geophysical data but are not necessarily geophysicists.

The journal is the continuation of the European Journal of Environmental and Engineering Geophysics published by the former Environmental and Engineering Geophysical Society - European Section.

Impact Factor 2008: 0.805

Near Surface Geophysics is indexed/abstracted in the Current Contents/ Physical, Chemical & Earth Sciences, ISI Alerting Service and Science Citation Index Expanded.

Near Surface Geophysics is published 6 times a year.

The First International Conference on Frontiers in Shallow Subsurface Technology

EAGE is happy to support the First International Conference on Frontiers in Shallow Subsurface Technology (FSST). The event will take place from 20–22 January 2010 and is organized by the Delft University of Technology, the Dutch Ministry of Housing, Spatial Planning and the Environment, and Deltares. The FSST seeks to stimulate the exchange of ideas among a community of scientists and professionals with a common interest in understanding the impacts of subsurface utilization.

For more information and registration, please visit the website: http://www.shallowsubsurface.org/

All the abstracts are now available online at EarthDoc. EAGE will be present with a booth. Please come and visit us during this event!

Near Surface Geophysics double issue on hydrogeophysics destined for major reference status

This month Near Surface Geophysics (NSG) makes history with the publica­tion of a double issue entitled ‘Hydro­geophysics – Methods and Processes’. It is a comprehensive review of ground­water issues in geophysics and takes up the whole of issues 5 and 6 in Volume 7 (pp. 241–596) of the journal.

Four guest editors, Louise Pellerin (Green Engineering, USA), Klaus Hol­liger (University of Lausanne, Switzer­land), Lee Slater (Rutgers University, USA), and Ugur Yaramanci (Leibniz Institute for Applied Geophysics, Han­nover and Berlin University of Tech­nology, Germany) were responsible for the project highlighting the current state of the art and frontline research in hydrogeophysics.

In their foreword, the editors state that the rapid and dynamic growth of this field was evident from the response to an international call for contribu­tions. Over 70 statements of interest in the form of abstracts and nearly 40 papers were submitted. At the end of a rigorous review process, 27 high qual­ity papers submitted by authors from 12 countries were accepted, spanning a wide range of topics.

The editors believe that the objec­tives of the hydrogeophysics issue first outlined in the February 2008 issue of NSG have been fully realized. At that time they wrote: ‘Groundwater is an increasingly scarce and fragile resource and there is wide recognition of the challenges we face in effectively protecting and sustainably managing clean sources of water for human con­sumption and agricultural uses. The emerging field of hydrogeophysics, being the development of geophysical methodologies to explore and assess hydrological relevant properties, struc­tures and processes, has a pivotal role to play in achieving these objectives. In response to the rapid expansion of research in this exciting field, the journal of Near Surface Geophysics is going to produce a ‘Special Issue on Hydrogeophysics’ with the objective to collect the currently most pertinent research in this field and to create a widely used, authorative reference volume.’ Topics covered (along with numerous case studies) include hydro­geophysical measurement, assessment, and monitoring techniques; new and emerging hydrogeophysical meth­ods; classical geophysical methods revisited, improved, and adapted for hydrogeophysics; integration, mod­elling and inversion of geophysical and hydrological data; geophysical characterization of the hydrogeologic framework; and geophysical estima­tion of petrophysical and hydraulic parameters.

The special issue was planned as a joint venture between the European Association of Geoscientists and Engineers (EAGE), the publisher of NSG, and the Society of Exploration Geophysicists (SEG) to enhance com­munication between research com­munities throughout the world and ensure widespread and effective dis­semination of the latest work and results. The intention from the start was to distribute print versions of this special issue, as well as investi­gate the possibility of online access for all EAGE-NSGD and SEG-NSGS members which has now been fully implemented and is in operation.

Ugur Yaramanci, editor in chief, NSG says: ‘We are very happy to have realized this project with excel­lent cooperation from everyone. The effort of all the authors and reviewers involved, my fellow guest editors, and the EAGE Publications Office is greatly appreciated.’

(This article is published in First Break October 2009)

Improved referencing for Near Surface Geophysics articles

As of August 2009, all articles pub­lished in Near Surface Geophysics from Volume 1, Number 1 onwards have been assigned a unique identification number known as a Digital Object Identifier (DOI). In future all articles in the journal will be published with their own DOI. EAGE’s journals Geophysical Prospecting, Petroleum Geoscience, and Basin Research are already part of this scheme.

The DOI identifies content in the digital environment. DOI labels are assigned to any piece of material that is published online. In the case of a journal this can help scientists to locate an individual article on the Internet. Over time the information linked to an article can change, including where to find it, but its DOI name will never change. It is therefore important to quote the DOI number of your article in the reference list of future journal articles. It will make finding referenced papers easier for future readers.

A DOI number consists of two parts: a prefix and a suffix. The prefix identi­fies the original publisher of the journal, in the case of Near Surface Geophysics this is EAGE. The suffix is a unique number that identifies the individual work. The publisher is responsible for making sure that each article is assigned with a unique number.

EAGE has registered with the Inter­national DOI Foundation (IDF) through the registration agency CrossRef, an independent membership association, founded and directed by publishers especially for scholarly and professional publications. This citation-linking net­work already covers millions of articles and other content from several hundred scholarly and professional publishers.

To find an article with the help of its DOI number, you can use the following sites: http://www.crossref.org/ or www.doi.org. They can also give you more informa­tion about DOI in general. EAGE is also working towards assigning DOI numbers to all scientific articles pub­lished online in its monthly magazine First Break.

(This article is published in First Break October 2009)