How are scientific journals verified as credible

How do we distinguish between credible scientific journals like JOM ( link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JOM ) and publications like the Journal of 9/11 Studies, who claim to be a 'scientific journal' (linik: http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Journal_of_… ).

Is there some official list academia maintains?

Typically you'd look at the journal's impact factor to figure out whether scientists or researchers take it seriously. A journal with a high impact factor means the papers published in that journal are often cited in other journals; JOM has an impact factor of about 1, on average papers are cited once. That's not very high, but it's also pretty technical. Nature has an impact factor of 31. And journals like the 9/11 studies one are unlikely to be cited at all, because no one in the fields takes them seriously.

They don't fall cleanly into two distinct categories, reliable journals and crack-pots. Instead, there is a continuum with the most rigorously peer-reviewed at one end and the most ridiculous nonsense at the other. Most journals fall somewhere in between as somewhat reliable or mostly reliable or generally crack-pot. Even the most conservative journals allow the publication of a few articles which later turn out to be inaccurate and the most ridiculous have a few good points. The "Journal of Ir-reproducible Results" even had some good insights from time to time.

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By people critically reading the content. As I happen to know lots of stuff about Mesozoic mammals, for example, I'm qualified enough to distinguish between junk and quality in that particular small field. Other people are even better qualified than I am. The same applies for other people in different areas.

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No. Nevertheless, the distribution can provide clues as can whether articles get cited in subsequent publications as sources.