Worldwide trends in research on the San Andreas Fault System

This paper deals with the bibliometric study of the research concerning the San Andreas Fault System (SAFS), an extraordinary example of a complex boundary between the North of America and the Pacific plates that can be seen, followed and studied on land for hundreds of kilometers through California, in the USA. The bibliometric analysis discussed here considers the time span of 23 years, from 1991 to 2013. The bibliographic databases taken as a reference are the Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-EXPANDED) and the Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) accessed via Web of Science Core Collection. After having selected the proper search terms to fix the query and extracting the useful information from the two Web of Science (WoS) databases, we performed the analysis of the outputs paying attention to the document typology and languages, journals, subject categories, authors, articles, countries, institutions, and keywords. The results of this study can (1) contribute to see how the research on SAFS has changed over the time and suggest clues about the future investigation trends, (2) help scientists or institutions to build a research network and find strategic partners, (3) suggest scientists and institutions the dissemination strategies, and (4) provide helpful information to researchers wishing to embark on work in this area.