In what areas of science is research performed? This map shows papers, patents, and grants related to biomass and biofuel research and technology overlaid on the UCSD base map of science. Only work in the US is shown.

Records (matched by journal name or keyword) are aggregated both at the upper level of 13 broad scientific disciplines and at the lower level of 554 subdiscipline clusters. Labels for the 13 scientific disciplines appear on the science map and provide a legend for the color of the subdiscipline clusters appearing on the background tiles. The default zoom level on each map will display the high level aggregation of the data. Zooming in will break the top level markers apart into the lower level clusters.

The maps also allow users to drag the basemap to expose a different area, pan the map along the cardinal directions using arrow controls, and interact directly with the data markers that have been placed on the maps.

When the mouse hovers over a marker, the data records that are represented by that marker are summarized in terms of marker title, number of records, and distribution of those records across the various data sources. Clicking on the marker updates the detail pane to show a list of the titles of the records, grouped by data source and date. Each title is a link that points to the URL for that record on the data source's website.

The maps also include controls to select subsets of the entire sustainability data set. Checkboxes allow users to limit data sources by institution or by source type (i.e., funding, publications, and patents). Radio buttons toggle the markers between representing a count of the records or another relevant numerical representation (dollar amount for funding, citations for publications and patents). Records can also be limited by date by selecting start and end years for the query. A keyword search can also restrict the query to only those records that contain a particular word or phrase.