ALEXANDRIA, VA. -- The American Geological Institute (AGI) will release the eighth edition of the GEOREF THESAURUS in November 1997. The 21,000-term thesaurus is a useful tool to obtain the best results from literature searches of the GeoRef (Geological References) database and the Bibliography and Index of Geology.

Alphabetical entries in the main section provide related and alternative search terms -- with notes on searching and term scope. The introduction explains GeoRef vocabulary development and provides guidelines for using the thesaurus. Supplementary term lists cover geologic (stratigraphic) age, commodities, fossils, meteorites, rocks, minerals, soils, sediments, and the major geographic terms used by the GeoRef staff.

The eighth edition of the GeoRef Thesaurus adds more than 800 new terms to the previous edition, published in 1994. Most of the additions represent names and concepts encountered by GeoRef indexers with some frequency since the previous edition. Other new terms relate to political changes or research activities such as the Ocean Drilling Program. Coordinates, expressed in latitude and longitude, have been added to approximately 900 terms; 74 percent of the 11,600 geographic terms in the eighth edition include geographic coordinates.

The eighth edition of the GeoRef Thesaurus, edited by Barbara Goodman, will contain approximately 820 pages. The price is $118.75, plus shipping and handling ($6.50 in the contiguous United States, $15.00 in Canada). For shipping charges to other locations, contact the AGI Publications Center. Orders must be prepaid and should be sent to: AGI Publications Center, P.O. Box 205, Annapolis Junction, Md., 20701. Telephone orders, charged to VISA or MasterCard, are also accepted. Telephone: (301) 953-1744. Fax: (301) 206-9789.

The American Geological Institute, established in 1948, is a nonprofit federation of 31 member societies representing more than 100,000 geologists, geophysicists, and other earth and environmental scientists. The institute established the GeoRef database in 1966. This service to the geoscience community provides access to the geoscience literature of the world. GeoRef is the most comprehensive database in the geosciences and continues to grow by more than 60,000 references a year. The database contains more than 2 million references to geoscience journal articles, books, maps, conference papers, reports, and theses.