NEW JOURNALS - NEW SOURCES OF RESEARCH DISCOVERIES IN GEOSCIENCE?

Journals proliferate. Publishers may want to expand their market into new research areas. Perhaps they want to focus their journals towards specific markets by making more specialized titles. Editors may be interested in establishing a new journal to publish papers that are underrepresented in the literature. Perhaps there is a disagreement between editorial board members of a current journal and their publisher. There may be other reasons for starting a new journal. This study examines whether new journals indeed capture research areas that are underrepresented in established journals. Geoscience journals that were started in the 1980s and early 1990s are compared to established geoscience journals. GeoRef and the Web of Science are used to identify the subject distribution of articles over time. Are there any signs that articles on specific topics moved to the new specialized journals? Citation data from articles in both the new journals and established journals are compared to examine the reach of the new titles. Do the new journals facilitate the discovery of new research and promote scientific communication?