Information for Authors

Overview and Editorial Policy

Geochemical Perspectives Letters is published by the European Association for Geochemistry (EAG), produced by and for the geochemical community. It is open access, without page charges (unless opting for the Open Access Contribution) and available in electronic format.

Articles should be short (max. 3000 words for the abstract, text and figure/table captions, with no more than 30 references and 4 tables or figures), top quality, and report on new, interesting developments. If desired, supporting information can be included as a Supplementary Information.

Articles will only be published if they are original work, not previously published or not under consideration for publication elsewhere. Each new submission will be screened by the tool iThenticate / Similarity Check to detect possible plagiarism.

Electronic preprints (an author’s version of a manuscript that has been deposited on a preprint server or institutional website prior to undergoing peer review at a journal) are not considered as previous publication. If an article has been deposited as a preprint prior to submission, the author must inform the editor in the cover letter at the time of submission and provide the link to the preprint as well as any relevant licensing information. If the manuscript is eventually accepted for publication in Geochemical Perspectives Letters, the preprint should be updated to include the reference to the published article, including its url link and DOI.

All manuscript submissions are subject to initial appraisal by an editor, and if suitable for the journal, will follow a standard peer-review process.

Submission

Manuscripts should be submitted using the online tool. They will be assigned an editor and reviewed as quickly as possible.
Should you have any issue with the tool, please contact office@geochemicalperspectives.org.

Cover Letter

The cover letter should briefly describe the importance of the manuscript for geochemistry and provide the names of 2 editors and 4 reviewers, with no association to the author(s). Reviewers cannot be former supervisors (within 5 years of PhD), current or past close collaborators, or from the same institution. Should authors, reviewers or editors have any conflict of interest, this should be stated in the cover letter.

Article Length and Style

An article consists of:

• no more than 3000 words (including abstract, text, figure/table captions);
• a maximum of 30 references;
• a maximum of 4 small figures or tables.

Please make sure your submission includes line numbers.

Please use British English spelling, grammar and style. We strongly recommend setting the language to English UK in the text editor.

Define technical terms and avoid jargon.

Title

The title should be short, punchy, and communicate the main findings of the article in less than 90 characters.

Authors

The submitting author should list all the names and affiliations of the co-authors. The corresponding author(s) should be identified with an asterisk.

Abstract and Graphical Abstract

The abstract should be concise (150-180 words) but informative, telling what was done, how it was done, what was observed, what it means and what major, new understanding it has produced.

Authors should also submit a graphical abstract summarising the message of the article; the graphical abstract should ideally be a good representation of the story in the paper and also be useful for advertisement. If a diagram is used as graphical abstract, we may also request a photo for advertisement.

The final size of the graphical abstract in the online version of the article will be 200 px wide and approximately 120 px high (i.e. a 5:3 width:height ratio). If your image includes text, make sure that it remains legible at that size.

Formatting of the Text

Articles should be written using MS Word, in 12 pt Times New Roman; the submission tool will produce a PDF but if your article is accepted for publication, the Word document may be requested.

Leave one empty line between paragraphs. Do not indent paragraphs.

Headers and sub-headers should be clearly identifiable, in the main article as well as in the Supplementary Information.

Use standard SI units. Use units without punctuation and with appropriate spacing, i.e. leave a space between the unit and the quantity; for example, 7 Myr, 25 °C, 10 %.

Leave a space on each side of mathematical symbols; for example, x + y, P < 3.
However if there is only one number, remove the space; for example, <3.

Use the abbreviation Myr for million years (duration of time); Ma for Megaannum (point in time or age).

Note “i.e.” and “e.g.” should always be in italics. In British standards, “e.g.” should be followed by a comma but not “i.e.”.

In numbers of 5 digits and more, use commas to separate off the thousands and millions.

Define parameters used in mathematical expressions. Use variables compatible with journals commonly used by geochemists (American Mineralogist, Canadian Mineralogist, Chemical Geology, Earth and Planetary Science, Mineralogical Magazine, Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta or Clays and Clay Minerals).

Indicate equations as Eq. 1, Eq. 2 etc. If equations are used in the Supplementary Information, indicate them as Eq. S-1, Eq. S-2 etc.

We follow the recommendations of the International Mineralogical Association regarding mineral nomenclature.

Figures and Tables

Note authors are responsible for requesting permission to reproduce previously published works.

Figure format

Take advantage of the possibility to publish in colour; interesting, colour graphics are strongly encouraged.

Use tif, jpeg, png or eps format and save them in RGB or CYMK. Do not send figures embedded in other software.

Use high resolution photographs (300 dpi at published size) or line drawings (preferably coloured) at 600 dpi.

Do not add frames to figures.

Use British English spelling for any text on the figures.

If the figure includes several panes, those should be indicated as “a, b, c…” in lower case. The size of the characters should be sufficiently big to ensure legibility.

Citing figures in the text

Figures in the text should be cited as “Figure 1 presents…” or “Figure 1a presents…”.
If parenthesis are used, the figure should be cited as “(Fig. 1)” or “(Fig. 1a,b)”.
Figures in the text of Supplementary Information should be cited as “Figure S-1” or “(Fig. S-1)”.

Format of figure captions

The figure caption should be written as: “Figure 1 Concentration as a function… “.
If the figure includes several panes, the caption should be written as: “Figure S-2 (a) Complete cases (black) versus imputed (red) kernel density distributions for TiO₂. (b-c) Overall, the imputed values are realistic and do not affect the secular trends that are the focus herein.”

Tables

Tables should be named “Table 1” etc. Tables in Supplementary Information should be named “Table S-1”.

Supplementary Information

Authors can submit Supplementary Information (SI) supporting the main article’s conclusions. The SI will be subject to the same editorial and peer-review procedures as the main article and may include details of experimental or field protocols, description of computational analyses, additional figures, tables, movies and references. For any Supplementary Information, please use the template provided.

Download the Geochemical Perspectives Letters Supplementary Information template (.docx).

Author Contributions and Acknowledgements

The description of the contribution of each co-author is optional, but if included, should be described briefly.

Acknowledgements are optional, and if added, should remain concise.

References

Download Geochemical Perspectives Letters Endnote Style file

An article may include a maximum of 30 references. References should be included in the text with names and dates, not by footnote numbers.
Articles that are not published cannot be referenced so do not include any reference to unpublished articles.
Authors are responsible for the accuracy of the references used.

Citing references in the text

References in the text should be cited as such: “Based on modelling of Fitoussi and Bourdon (2012), we calculate…”.
If cited in parenthesis: “The bulk Earth Zn isotope composition is equal to or lighter than those same meteorites (Albarède, 2009; Chen et al., 2013)…”.
Grouped references should be listed first chronologically, then alphabetically and separated by a semicolon: “(Smith, 1952; Jones, 1969; Smith and Jones, 1975, 1980; Hansen, 2010; Jakobsen et al., 2010)”.
Note “et al..” should be in italics.

Format of references in the reference list

In the reference list, all the names of the authors should be listed and the titles of publications should be entered in full and in italics, as per the examples below. Please include digital object identifiers (DOIs) for references where available, written in the form “https://doi.org/xxxxx”.

Reference to an article:
Nance, J.R., Armstrong, J.T, Cody, G.D., Fogel, M.L., Hazen, R.M. (2015) Preserved macroscopic polymeric sheets of shell-binding protein in the Middle Miocene (8 to 18 Ma) gastropod Ecphora. Geochemical Perspectives Letters 1, 1-9. https://doi.org/10.7185/geochemlet.1501

Reference to a book:
Strunk Jr., W., White, E.B. (1979) The Elements of Style. Third Edition, Macmillan, New York.

Reference to a book chapter:
Jones, G.U., Smith, L.B. (1995) The Chemistry of Hydrogen. In: James, B.S., Berlin, R.N. (Eds.) The Elements from A to Z. Smith-Publishing Inc., New York, 21–34.

Entries should be ordered alphabetically by author name, then chronologically from oldest to newest, with single author references first:
Christou, A.A. (2004) Predicting Martian and Venusian meteor shower activity. Earth, Moon, and Planets 95, 425-431. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11038-005-9023-0
Christou, A.A. (2010) Annual meteor showers at Venus and Mars: lessons from the Earth. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 402, 2759-2770. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2966.2009.16097.x
Christou, A.A., Beurle, K. (1999) Meteoroid streams at Mars: possibilities and implications. Planetary and Space Science 47, 1475-1485. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0032-0633(99)00064-1

Open Access Contribution

When articles are accepted for publication, authors will be given the option to publish at no charge OR to make an Open Access Contribution of 1250 Euros (articles will be open-access either way). Contributions received will be directly attributed to covering some of the expenses associated with producing Geochemical Perspectives Letters, a fully open-access publication created by and for the geochemical community.

Should your institution or funding body have established funds to help support open-access publication, we would strongly urge you to consider selecting the Open Access Contribution. We have assembled a list of institutions and organisations that support open access that you can consult here. If required by funding bodies, authors may then distribute the articles under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (CC BY 4.0). See Copyright and License for more information.

Comments and Invited Replies

Comments

Comments should point out an oversight or propose an opposing view to a published article in Geochemical Perspectives Letters. Comments should be submitted through the online submission tool. Comments are limited to 1500 words including references and one figure or table maximum. Comments should not contain an abstract and Supplementary Information is not allowed. Comments will be assigned to an editor and will follow the peer-review process (summarised below). Should the editor decide to proceed, the author of the original article will be invited to reply.

Invited replies

The author of the original article that is addressed in a Comment will be invited to reply to the comment. The reply should be submitted through the online submission tool. Replies to comments are limited to 1500 words including references and one figure or table maximum. Replies should not contain an abstract and Supplementary Information is not allowed.

Peer-review process for comments and invited replies

1. When a comment is received, the editor decides whether to pursue or not.
2. If the decision is to pursue, the comment is sent to the original author, who is invited to submit a reply.
3. When the reply is received, both the comment and the reply are sent out for review.
4. Based on the review, the editor makes a decision (accept, ask for revision, or reject) for both the comment and the reply.

If accepted for publication, both the (possibly revised) comment and (possibly revised) reply are published at the same time.

Editors will ensure that peer review is completed in a timely manner, but authors of Comments should be aware that the additional steps may, in some cases, result in a longer review process than for standard article submissions.