The Australian Journal of Earth Sciences

Submitting

Instructions to Authors

Download the Instructions to Authors as a PDF

The Australian Journal of Earth Sciences is the official journal of the Geological Society of Australia, and publishes articles dealing with all aspects of earth science. Research articles reporting original research should not exceed 5000 words, while Review articles in any field of earth science may be up to 10 000 words. Short articles, not exceeding eight A4 pages (including tables and figures), will be given priority in publication. Discussions and Replies relating to papers recently published in the Journal should not exceed four A4 pages. The acceptance criteria for all papers are the quality and originality of the research and its significance to readership. Authors should have their papers peerreviewed before submission. The names of these reviewers together with those of suggested referees should be given to the Editor when the paper is submitted. All manuscripts will be reviewed by at least two referees. The Editor will make the final decision concerning acceptance or rejection of a paper. The Editor reserves the right to refuse any material for publication. Authors should retain copies of submitted manuscripts and correspondence as material cannot be returned.

SUBMISSION OF MANUSCRIPTS
All articles submitted to the journal must comply with these instructions. Manuscripts should be written so that they are intelligible to the professional reader who is not a specialist in the field. Where contributions are judged as acceptable for publication on the basis of scientific content, the Editor reserves the right to modify typescripts to eliminate ambiguity and repetition and improve communication. If extensive alterations are required, the manuscript will be returned to the author for revision.
Papers are accepted for publication only if the content has not been published or submitted for publication elsewhere; they largely contain previously unpublished material; and all co-authors agree to the submission. It will assist reviewers if related papers recently published or submitted elsewhere accompany the submitted manuscript.
To make papers more relevant to international readers and those not directly involved in the specific subject area, the introduction should state how the research being described contributes to the field of geoscience discussed and its overall significance to the science.
Papers for consideration should be sent to the Editor-in-Chief: A. E. Cockbain, Australian Journal of Earth Sciences, PO Box 8114, Angelo Street, South Perth, WA 6151, Australia (email: The Australian Journal of Earth Sciences; tel and fax 61 8 9367 7037).
Authors are encouraged to submit manuscripts electronically. Electronic submissions should be sent as email attachments as either PDF files or a MSWord document with figures incorporated, and should be no more than 4 MB including figures and tables. (Figures can either be incorporated, as JPEGs or PDF: for black and white line drawings, PDF is recommended; for photographs and other digital images, the jpeg format is very good.) If email submission is not possible, please send three paper copies of text, tables and figures.
When the accepted paper is submitted in final form, please send one paper copy and a copy on disk (see ‘Manuscripts on Disk’ for further information).
Please make sure your contact address information is clearly visible on the outside of all packages you are sending to the Editor.

COPYRIGHT
Papers accepted for publication become copyright of the Geological Society of Australia and authors will be asked to sign a transfer of copyright form. In signing the transfer of copyright it is assumed that authors have obtained permission to use any copyrighted or previously published material. All authors must read and agree to the conditions outlined in the Copyright Assignment Form, and must sign the form or agree that the corresponding author can sign on their behalf. Articles cannot be published until a signed Copyright Assignment Form has been received. Authors in Government institutions where copyright is retained by the Crown are exempt from transfer of copyright to the Society.

PREPARATION OF THE MANUSCRIPT
Submissions should be printed, doubled-spaced, on one side only of A4 paper. The top, bottom and side margins should be 30 mm. Laser or near-letter quality print is essential. All pages should be numbered consecutively in the top right-hand corner, beginning with the title page.
Extensive sets of data, such as large tables or long appendices, may be classed as Supplementary Papers and lodged with the National Library of Australia (Manuscript Section) Canberra; copies may be obtained from the Society’s website (www.gsa.org.au) and the National Library website (www.nla.gov.au/nla.arc-25194).
Authors are encouraged to deposit whole-rock geochemical and geochronological data in the Geoscience Australia (GA) OZCHEM and OZCHRON databases. Authors should provide coordinates for critical localities and the repositories for critical samples (e.g. samples for analysis, thin-sections).

Style
The journal uses Australian spelling according to the latest edition of the Macquarie Dictionary. Style should conform to the Style Manual for Authors, Editors and Printers (6th edition). Stratigraphic practice should follow the International Stratigraphic Guide (2nd edition) and Field Geologist’s Guide to Lithostratigraphic Nomenclature in Australia; new stratigraphic names should be registered with the GA
Australian Stratigraphic Units Database. The GA website 'Defining a lithostratigraphic unit' (http://www.ga.gov.au/oracle/stratnames/defined.jsp) is a useful guide. SI units should be used. Statistics and measurements should always be given in numerals. When the number does not refer to a measurement it should be spelt out except when it is greater than nine. Wherever possible fractions should be written in the form x/y. Non-standard abbreviations must not be used in the text. Note that Ma refers to a date (e.g. 345 Ma) not a time interval (which is written as e.g. 10 million years).

Parts of the manuscript
Manuscripts of all articles should be presented as follows: Title page; Abstract; Key words; Text; References; Figure captions; Tables; Appendices (if any); and Figures. Authors may use up to four levels of headings, all of which are left justified: first-order headings are bold capitals; second-order headings are bold upper and lower case; third-order headings are capitals; and fourthorder headings are upper and lower case.

Title page
The title page should contain: (i) the title of the paper, (ii) the full names of the authors and (iii) the addresses of the institutions at which the work was carried out together with (iv) the full postal and email address, plus facsimile and telephone numbers, of the author to whom correspondence about the manuscript, proofs and requests for offprints should be sent. Changes of address should be indicated in a footnote. The title should be short, informative and begin with a key word. A short running title (less than 40 characters, including spaces) should also be provided.

Abstract and key words
The abstract should provide a concise summary of the results (rather than the contents) and should not exceed one paragraph of 300 words. It should not contain abbreviations or references. Three to 10 keywords (for the purposes of indexing) should be supplied. Text Manuscripts should be organised under the following headings: Introduction, which should contain the reasons for doing the work and essential background material, but not the results or conclusions; Methods (if applicable), which should provide sufficient details of techniques to
allow them to be repeated; Observations and results, which should not include material more appropriate to the Discussion; Discussion, which should emphasise the significance of the results and place them in the context of related work; Conclusions, which summarise the main
findings of the paper.

Acknowledgements
The source of financial grants and other funding should be acknowledged. The contribution of colleagues or institutions, and reviewers should also be acknowledged.

References
References should follow the author (date) system. Do not cite manuscripts submitted or in preparation. Titles of journals should be given in full and should be listed at the end of the paper; see recent issues of the Journal for the correct format. In the list references should be listed in alphabetical order. Cite the names of all authors. Personal communications and unpublished data are not to be listed in the reference list but should be mentioned in full in the text (e.g. A. Smith pers. comm. 2000).

Tables
Tables should be self-contained and complement, but not duplicate, information contained in the text. Extensive tabular data may be classed as Supplementary Papers. Tables should be numbered consecutively in Arabic numerals. Each table should be presented on a separate sheet of A4 paper with a comprehensive but concise title above the table. Tables should be doublespaced and vertical lines should not be used to separate columns. Column headings should be brief, with units of measurement in parentheses; all abbreviations should be defined in footnotes (using superscript letters). The table and its footnotes should be understandable without reference to the text.

Appendices
Data not essential to the understanding of the body of the paper should be placed in an appendix. Extensive sets of data may be classed as Supplementary Papers.

Figures
All illustrations (line drawings and photographs) are classified as figures. Figures should be cited in consecutive order in the text. Parts of figures should be labelled in lower case (e.g. Figure 2a, not 2A). Hard copy (paper) versions of each figure should be clearly labelled, indicating name of author(s), figure number and orientation. Figures should be sized to fit within the column (81 mm), intermediate (117 mm) or full text width (169 mm), and submitted, preferably, at final size.
Line figures should be supplied as sharp, black and white graphs or diagrams, drawn professionally or with a computer graphics package. Lettering should be in a sans serif typeface (e.g. Helvetica, Univers). After reduction, the size of the capital letters should be about 2 mm. Allowance should be made for lines and text becoming smaller and thinner on reduction.
Individual photographs forming a composite figure should be of equal contrast, to facilitate printing, and should be accurately squared. Photographs and line drawings of cross-sections, photomicrographs, etc. must have a scale; scale bars prevent potential error if a figure is reduced before publication.
Electronic files of all figures are essential and the file formats EPS (encapsulated postscript) and TIFF (tagged image file) are recommended: files must be supplied at a resolution of at least 300 d.p.i. at full size. PowerPoint and PDF files are not acceptable.
Colour figures Authors should restrict their use of colour to situations where it is necessary on scientific, and not merely cosmetic, grounds. Authors requiring colour illustrations should consult the Editor regarding cost before submission.

Figure captions
Please do not type the caption for a figure on the artwork for that figure. A separate list of figure captions should appear at the end of the manuscript. The caption should incorporate definitions of any symbols used and all abbreviations and units of measurement should be explained so that the figure and its caption are understandable without reference to the text.

MANUSCRIPTS ON DISK
When submitting the final revised version of your article, please supply both a hard-copy (paper) and the electronic files of the complete paper, bearing in mind the following points:

PROOFS AND OFFPRINTS

Proofs
Authors will be emailed an edited PDF file of their article. Authors are requested to check this file carefully for errors
and to answer any queries.

Offprints
Corresponding authors can now receive their article by email as a complete PDF. This allows the author to print up to 50 copies, free of charge, and disseminate them to colleagues. In many cases this facility will be available up to two weeks prior to publication. Alternatively, corresponding authors can choose to receive the traditional 50 offprints. A copy of the Journal will be sent by post to all corresponding authors after publication.
Additional copies of the Journal can be purchased at the author’s preferential rate of A$36.00/US$25 per copy.

ONLINE EDITION
Australian Journal of Earth Sciences is available online at www.ajes.com.au. Full-text online articles include reference links to cited articles and external databases, and a full search facility, so that you can find the information you are looking for. Note that Supplementary Papers (see above) are only available at the Geological Society’s and National Library’s websites. Keep up to date with the latest tables of contents, emailed directly to your desktop, by registering for free at www.tandf.co.uk/sara.

Home Top