• Formally-named institutions, organizations, and other entities, including:
  • societies, such as CAP, GSA, or AMQUA
  • projects, such as PAGES, or PALE
  • government agencies, such as ARC, USGS, or NSERC
  • identifiers for radiocarbon and AMS laboratories, such as ETH, or BGS
  • identifiers for museum collections and specimens, such as UCMP, or PMA
  • identifiers for libraries and archives, such as LOC, PAA, or HBCA
• Formally-named geographic entities, predominantly territorial in nature, including:
  • Canadian Provinces, such as AB, or BC
  • US states, such as MT, or WY
  • countries, such as PRC
• Identifiers for other types of geographic entities or locators, including:
  • postal codes
  • three-letter airport identifier codes
  • two-letter internet country codes
  • often-used acronyms for places or regions, usually informal, such as FSU
• Terms in common use in earth science, including:
  • time divisions or climate-stratigraphic units, such as LIA, or YD
  • dating methods, such as AMS, or TL
  • acronyms used in various sub-disciplines of Quaternary studies, such as VGP, or PAR
  • positional indicators, such as awl, dbs, or asl
• Terms often encountered in the workplace and scholarly-communication, including:
  • administrative and procedural terms, including CFP, or TBD
  • descriptors, such as AC, or QOL
  • miscellaneous but useful terms, such as DNK

The Dictionary has a North American bias, although it does include some terms from other areas of the world, especially Europe.

Where ever possible, I have included hypertext links to sites providing additional information for many of the societies, organizations, and projects listed.

A Background and Rationale section describes the development of this project.

If you find mistakes in this list, or know of other acronyms or abbreviations that should be included, please contact me at mailto:abeaudoi@gpu.srv.ualberta.ca (Alwynne Beaudoin). ]]>