As of November, 1996, there were more than 17,000 different news groups available via the Internet. You can play a passive role and read what others have to say or you can be active and respond to posted items or post your own statements or requests. In order to post responses or new items you must have a valid electronic mail account and your browser must be configured with your email address, your post office address, and the address of the system that maintains USENET (your NEWS server) for your organization. These can be set in Preferences under Options. Connections to two News Groups are given below

news:sci.geo.geology
news:sci.geo.petroleum


The first is the address of the Science, Geo(logy), Geology section which contains contributions dealing with a wide variety (believable and unbelievable) topics in Geology. If you see an article that interests you just double click on its name. If you want to respond (give some thought before you do this!) click on the Mail & Post Reply bar at the bottom of the page (in Netscape). Each week Andy Michael posts a "weekly USGS Quake Report" consisting of several maps of epicenters of recent earthquakes and every third week in the month a large file of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) to this Newsgroup.

Netscape allows you to request a list of all of the main categories of Newsgroups. When you are in one of the News Groups select Show All News Groups from the Options menu. (This may take a while, especially if you are using a modem.) Netscape allows you to subscribe (and, fortunately, "unsubscribe" to Newsgroups).

A good introduction to Newsgroups can be obtained in:

A Guide To Newsgroups