Explorer Allows Public Access to Results Of Sea Monster Search

Jørn Hurum | National Geographic | November 4, 2012

The Spitsbergen Jurassic Research Group has just published the sum of eight field seasons in a volume of Norwegian Journal of Geology and is proud to present the results free of any charge to anyone.

All papers are Open Access. The philosophy of our project has always been openness, bringing media on the expeditions to report about our excavations and having the public visiting the excavation sites in cooperation with Spitsbergen Travel.

Norwegian Journal of Geology is of course peer-reviewed as any proper scientific journal should be. I have never understood why large publishers of scientific journals should earn millions of dollars on scientific results that they have not supported in any way. The scientists write the text, format the illustrations, and pay artists to do reconstructions or technical drawings. The peer review is made free by other researchers; small journals even have scientists as editors. Publishers only do layout of a pdf file, still they get all the money...