Database of Geoscientific References Through 2006 

for Afghanistan, Version 1 

By Robert G. Eppinger and Julianna Sipeki 

Open-File Report 2006–1370

USGS Afghanistan Project Product Number 161

U.S. Department of the Interior 

U.S. Geological Survey 
 

U.S. Department of the Interior 

DIRK KEMPTHORNE, Secretary 

U.S. Geological Survey 

Mark D. Myers, Director 

U.S. Geological Survey, Reston, Virginia 2006 

For product and ordering information: 

World Wide Web: http://www.usgs.gov/pubprod 

Telephone: 1-888-ASK-USGS 

For more information on the USGS—the Federal source for science about the Earth, 

its natural and living resources, natural hazards, and the environment: 

World Wide Web: http://www.usgs.gov 

Telephone: 1-888-ASK-USGS 

Suggested citation: 

Eppinger, Robert G., and Sipeki, Julianna, 2006, Database of geoscientific references through 2006 

for Afghanistan, version 1: U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 2006-1370. 

Any use of trade, product, or firm names is for descriptive purposes only and does not imply 

endorsement by the U.S. Government. 

Although this report is in the public domain, permission must be secured from the individual 

copyright owners to reproduce any copyrighted material contained within this report. 

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Contents 

Introduction .........................................................................................................................................................................4

Database Structure............................................................................................................................................................6

Example Queries.................................................................................................................................................................7

Future Plans.........................................................................................................................................................................8

References Cited ................................................................................................................................................................9

Table 

1. Database field names and descriptions for reference tables.. .............................................................................6 

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Database of Geoscientific References Through 2006 

for Afghanistan, Version 1 

By Robert G. Eppinger and Julianna Sipeki 

Introduction 

This report describes an accompanying database of geoscientific references for the country 

of Afghanistan. The reference compilation is part of a larger joint study of Afghanistan’s energy, 

mineral, and water resources, and geologic hazards, currently underway by the U.S. Geological 

Survey, the British Geological Survey, and the Afghanistan Geological Survey. 

The compilation of geoscientific references was initially planned to contain only mineralresource-related references. However, the effort soon grew to encompass references related to water 

resources, energy resources, and geologic hazards. It is emphasized that this is an on-going work in 

progress and that the present database is incomplete. A second version of the reference database is 

planned for future release, and will include all geology-oriented references of Afghanistan. 

The electronic database is in Microsoft®

 Access 2003 format. To utilize this database 

effectively, a basic understanding of Access is required, including how to view tables, create simple 

queries, print reports, and export data. Query results can be easily exported to Microsoft® Excel 

spreadsheets or various other database formats. An IBM PC-compatible computer is required as 

Microsoft® Access is presently available only for PCs. 

This database includes both published (n = 1,157) and unpublished (n = 168) references, as 

two separate tables in the Access database. The references were gathered through September 2006. 

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The published references table (tblPublishedReferences) includes a GeoRef accession number 

(American Geological Institute, 2006, accessed 10/20/2006), which can be used for linking the 

reference to the GeoRef database, and the U.S. Geological Survey library call number, if the library 

contains the holding. Rights to use the references in the GeoRef database were purchased from the 

American Geological Institute so they could be re-distributed here without copyright infringement. 

The unpublished references table (tblUnPublishedReferences) contains citations identified as 

unpublished, internal reports by various national geological survey organizations, or partial 

citations that were discovered during this compilation. Many of the older published and 

unpublished references identified here are likely housed in the archive collection of the Afghanistan 

Geological Survey, which is presently being inventoried and catalogued in a combined effort by the 

Afghanistan and British Geological Surveys. For information on the progress of this cataloging 

effort, see the website http://www.bgs.ac.uk/afghanminerals/reports.htm. 

The published and unpublished reference tables have keyword fields that allow for 

searching capability within the reference database. Keywords are separated into two broad 

categories: scientific and geographic/cultural. The complete lists of keywords are listed 

alphabetically in the database in two separate keyword tables, tblKeywords_Scientific and 

tblKeywords_Geographic&Cultural. The keywords used here follow the spelling and plurality 

conventions recommended in the GeoRef thesaurus (Goodman, 2000). Keywords were gathered 

from reference titles and, for those references listed in GeoRef, from the GeoRef keyword fields. 

Sources of information for this reference compilation include libraries and colleagues of the 

U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), the British Geological Survey (BGS), the French Bureau de 

Recherches Géologiques et Minières (BRGM), the Czech Geological Survey (CGS), the German 

Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources (BGR), the Federal Agency on Mineral 

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Resources of the Russian Federation (VSEGEI), and the Centre for Russian and Central Asian 

Mineral Studies (CERCAMS). The American Geological Institute’s GeoRef and GeoRef Preview 

databases, historical documents of the Afghanistan Department of Geological and Mineral Survey, 

and the GoogleTM search engine on the internet were also used. Acknowledgment is given to these 

various sources for the accumulated body of references within this database.

Database Structure

The published (tblPublishedReferences) and unpublished (tblUnPublishedReferences) 

reference tables have identical database structures. The database fields and their descriptions are listed 

in table 1. Microsoft® Access table and query naming conventions follow those suggested by Reddick 

(1995, accessed 10/20/2006). The two keyword tables are simply listings of keywords used in the 

reference tables. They each have two fields, a numeric index field and a memo keyword field. 

Table 1. Database field names and descriptions for reference tables. 

Field name Field type Description of field 

Index numeric Key field and database index 

Author_Senior text First author, in the format: Last name, first 

name (initials or spelled out) 

Author_Secondary text Additional authors, same format as above, 

listed sequentially as found in reference 

Author_All memo Complete author listing for building citation 

Year text Year of publication 

GEORef_Accession_ID text ID that ties reference to the AGI GeoRef 

database; blank if no data 

USGS_Library_ID text ID that ties reference to the U.S. Geological 

Survey Library system catalogue number; 

blank if no data

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Original_Title memo Full title of reference as originally found in 

it’s native language 

Translated_Title text English title translation for the reference; 

irregularly populated field 

Source memo Source of the reference; for example, journal 

title, volume, series, and page number 

Document_Type text Type of document for the reference 

Source_For_Database memo Mechanism in which the reference was 

found for this database 

Language text Language of original reference 

English_Summary text For non-English references, note whether 

there is an English translation in the paper; 

irregularly populated 

Scientific_Keyword memo Scientific keywords; see 

tblKeywords_Scientific for complete list of 

keyword possibilities 

Geogr_Cult_Keyword memo Geographic and cultural keywords; see 

tblKeywords_Geographic&Cultural for 

complete list of keyword possibilities 

Other_ID text Secondary ID for the reference, such as the 

reference code for a different library; 

irregularly populated field 

Author_Senior_Alt_Spelling text First author, spelling as found in original 

source, if different from Author_Senior 

Author_Secondary_Alt_Spelling text Additional authors, spelling as found in 

original source, if different from 

Author_Secondary 

Comment text Comment related to reference; irregularly 

populated field 

Example Queries 

The two keyword tables are provided as an aid in choosing keywords to query the reference 

tables. The keyword tables can be printed out using two reports within the database: 

rptListing_of_Keywords_Scientific and rptListing_of_Keywords_Geographic_Cultural. 

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For users only vaguely familiar with Microsoft® Access, two example queries are provided. 

These are “make table” queries that create tables based on the presence or absence of keywords. 

The first query, qmktblExampleQueryResult_PublishedRefs, examines the table 

tblPublishedReferences, looking for references that contain the words “copper” and “mineral 

deposits,” but not the word “zinc” in the Scientific_Keywords field, and containing the word 

“Afghanistan” in the Geographic_Cultural_Keywords field. Upon running the query, the results are 

found in the table tblExampleQueryResult_FromPublishedReferences. 

The second query, qmktblExampleQueryResult_UnPublishedRefs, examines the table 

tblUnPublishedReferences, looking for references that contain the word “water” in the 

Scientific_Keywords field, and containing the word “Afghanistan” in the 

Geographic_Cultural_Keywords field. Upon running the query, the results are found in the table 

tblExampleQueryResult_FromUnPublishedReferences. 

The two above example queries show the necessary format for queries and can be easily 

modified to generate additional queries, based on keyword selections. Since multiple keywords are 

listed in the fields for published and unpublished references, wildcard characters (*) should be used 

before and after each keyword in the query to ensure successful results. The tables of references 

resulting from the queries can be easily exported to Microsoft®

 Excel spreadsheets and other 

formats by hovering the mouse over the table and right-clicking. 

Future Plans 

A second version of this database is underway. Version 2 will contain all geoscientific 

references that we will have found up to the date of the release. Pull-down lists and (or) check-off 

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boxes for keyword queries are also in planning stages for version 2, and these will make the future 

database easier to use. 

References Cited 

American Geological Institute, 2006, The GeoRef database: Alexandria, Va., American Geological 

Institute [http://www.agiweb.org/georef/index.html]. 

Goodman, B.A., 2000, GeoRef thesaurus, 9th ed.: Alexandria, Va., American Geological Institute, 

830 p. 

Reddick, Greg, 1995, The Reddick VBA [Visual Basic for Applications] naming conventions: Greg 

Reddick, available for download at http://www.xoc.net/standards/rvbanc.asp. 

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