Growth and citation selection rates in rapidly growing sciences from date stacking and bibliographic databases

Abstract

Growth of literature in a field was taken as an indicator of the growth of the field as a whole. Stacked citation dataatid the yearly accumulation of literature were found for 3 fields i n the geosciences : Geology and Geophysics of Mars (1962-1985), Magnetic Stratigraphy (1957-1977) and early Seismology (1600-1750). The yearly accumulation for the first two fields was found from a computerized bibliographic database (GEOREF). That for early Seismology was found from a published bibliography. Phases of logistic growth and of exponential growth as well as several periods of constant rate of selection of citations were found.