For Authors

Focus
AJS publishes research that expands our knowledge of the Earth, with an emphasis the study of the structure, composition, and evolution of our planet, and the physical, chemical, and biological processes that have influenced its evolution. Recent papers have focused on geochemistry, geochronology, geodynamics, geomorphology, basin analysis, Earth history, petrology, tectonics, and thermochronology, but new directions are welcomed.

Publication Options
Below is a list of our publication options. These publication options are distinguished, in part, by their length, which we measure in terms of a publication unit (PU). Briefly stated, each 500-word increment of the main text counts for 1 PU, and each figure and table counts for 1.5 PU (see below for full description). The term free limit is used below to indicate the maximum PU length that will be published free of charge.
a) Science Paper: A primary contribution, presenting original research with a full documentation of relevant research questions, background literature, methods, results, and conclusions. Open submission by author. Free length is 45 PU. Longer papers are charged an excess fee.
b) Science Review: A secondary contribution in that the paper is focused on the assessment, integration, and synthesis of previously published work. Submission by invitation, but unsolicited proposals will be considered. Free length is 45 PU. Longer papers are charged an excess fee.
c) Science Note: A short contribution about a topic of broad interest to our readers. The contribution may be focused on new data, a new hypothesis or interpretation, or an opinion or perspective. The topic must be compact enough to be fully supported within the limits of this format. Open submission by author. Limited to a maximum length of 4 PU (no fees).
d) Technical Report: A publication that describes methods with significant utility for science research, such as a laboratory procedure, a computer program, or a database. Open submission by author. Free length is 45 PU. Longer papers are charged an excess fee.
e) Comment: A short critical assessment of a recent AJS publication. Open submission by author. Limited to a maximum length of 4 PU (no fees).
f) Reply: The authors’ reply to a comment about their AJS publication. Limited to a maximum length of 4 PU (no fees).
g) Errata: Corrections to an AJS publication, as provided by the authors of that publication. Usually very brief (no fees).

Evaluation Criteria
We seek papers that rank high in terms of the following criteria (after Larsson and Patriksson, 2016). Please consider these criteria as you write your paper.

1. Relevance: How does the paper relate to current scientific imperatives?
2. Generality: What is the reach of the paper in terms of research focus and results?
3. Originality: Is the research unique, creative, or innovative?
4. Progress: Does the paper provide a significant advance in scientific knowledge?
5. Accessibility: Is the paper accessible to a broad audience?
6. Scientific Foundation: Does the paper establish a clear foundation based on accepted theory and/or methodology? And is that foundation clearly described and referenced at the beginning of the paper?
7. Integration: Does the paper provide a clear integration of previous knowledge with new results? Does it make connections with research in other fields, or indicate a promising approach for future research?
8. Consistency: Are the results and conclusions of the paper consistent with the claims and ambitions stated in the introduction?
9. News Value: Is the paper of interest to the broader scientific community or to the general public?

Web-Based Submission
All manuscripts must be submitted via our Manuscript Manager system, located at Manuscript Manager (https://ajs.manuscriptmanager.net/). The submission tool includes the following questions, which are important for the initial evaluation by the Editorial Board.

1. Overview: A brief description of the essential research question addressed by the paper, and the originality and significance of the paper.
2. Authors: List of authors, with their affiliations and ORCID numbers.
3. Statement of Original Content: A statement indicating that the content of the paper is original, and that the paper is not in review, in press, or already published elsewhere. We recognize that there might be some overlap with other publications. If so, please include a discussion of this issue. Note that if we will be forced to reject or retract papers if we discover significant undisclosed overlap after submission or publication.
4. Reviewers: A list of five or more potential reviewers, with a brief statement for each indicating their expertise relative to the paper. In addition, authors can include list of reviewers that they feel should be avoided, with a brief explanation for each individual. There is no guarantee that we will follow these suggestions, but the information is commonly very helpful.
5. Editors and Associate Editors: Authors may suggest editors and associate editors at AJS that they think are well suited for handling their paper.

Authorship
Our practice at AJS is that the lead author is the one that has done most of the work and has taken the lead in writing the paper. Coauthors are those that have made significant science contributions to the paper, and they are generally listed in order of the declining size of their contributions. The paper must include an accurate statement of the contribution of each of the listed authors. All co-authors must agree to the submission of the paper. On submission, AJS sends out an inquiry to each co-author to verify that all agree with the decision to submit.

Our correspondence about the paper during review, revision, and publication will be directed to a corresponding author. Usually, this task is done by the lead author, but, in some cases, it is useful for one of the other authors to take on this role. This option is included as part to the submission process.

Paper Length
AJS uses the concept of a publication unit (PU) to measure the length of a digital publication. This measure is used to set limits for short-form publications, and to define a free limit for long form publications (see Publication Options above). An excess length fee of $100 per excess PU is applied if a long-form publication is greater than this free limit.

The PU length of a publication is determined as such:

1. For text content, the PU is defined as 1 PU per 500 words. When measuring text content, we consider the main body of the publication, including equations, Appendix, and references. The title, list of authors and affiliations, keywords, and captions for figures and tables are not included for this calculation.
2. An additional 1.5 PU is added for each figure and table.
3. The total PU for a publication is set by rounding to the next whole number.
4. First 10 equations are counted as 1 PU. Additional equations are counted as excess PU, even if all other elements do not exceed the PU limit, and 1 PU is added for every 10 equations.

The formula of PU = number of words/500 + (number of figures + number of tables) *1.5

(rounding up to next whole number)

Example1: consider a Science Paper with a main text of 15,000 words and a combination of 10 figures and tables. This publication would have a length of 45 PU, which is the free limit for a Science Paper. Note that we have set the free limit for Science Papers to match the average length of past research papers published in AJS.

Example2: consider a Science Paper with a main text of 20,000 words and 12 figures and tables combined. The publication would have a length of 58 PU, which indicates an excess fee of $1,300.

Example3: if your article has 8000 words, 4 figures, and 32 equations, the total of PU will be 16 PU (words) + 6 PU (figures) + 1 PU (10 equations) = 23 PU, and the excess PU will be 3 PU (22 equations). The excess PU fee will be $300.

Statistical Terms
Paraphrased from Wikipedia: A population is a set of similar items or events which is of interest for some question or experiment. A sample is a subset of the items or events of interest and is used to represent the statistical properties of the population. Those properties are characterized by statistical parameters. The old-time practice is to use Greek letters to indicate parameters for the population, such as the population mean mu and the population standard deviation sigma, and Roman letters to indicate parameters estimated from samples, such as the sample mean m and the sample standard deviation s. Population parameters are generally unknown, and sample parameters are generally estimated. The uncertainty for the estimate of the mean is usually called the standard error, or the standard deviation of the sample mean, and is labeled as SE or sm, where SE = s/sqrt(n), where n is the size of the sample.

Recommendations for Reporting Errors
The following guidelines are provided to ensure clearer reporting of errors and uncertainties.
a) We see many cases where errors are cited without any indication of the method or level for the error estimate. The two most commonly used methods are based on SE, the standard error (or standard deviation of the mean), or on CI, a confidence interval. The SE method is more flexible because it does not require a specific probability distribution. The CI method may be more precise, but only if the probability distribution is known. The level of the error estimate is usually specified as 1SE, 2SE, 68% CI, and 98% CI.
b) We encourage authors to report errors in the same fashion throughout the paper. In this way, one only needs to indicate the method and level once at the start of the paper, such as: “All errors in this paper are reported as 2SE unless noted otherwise.”
c) We have found cases where SE is confused with SD, the sample-based standard deviation. SD estimates the dispersion of the sample data, and SE estimates the expected dispersion of the sample mean, and SE = SD/√n.
d) There may be instances where the “error” is better represented by SD rather than SE. To explain, consider a sample distribution of n = 100 detrital grain ages with a mean = 50 Ma and SD = 5 Ma. Usually, the focus is on the precision of the estimated mean, which is given by SE = SD/√n = 0.5 Ma. However, the focus might be on the expected range of variation for a new grain age selected from the same distribution. For this case, the error would be better represented by the estimated SD = 5 Ma.
e) Authors often use 1σ, 2σ, etc. to denote the level of an error estimate. We advise against this practice. The reason is that σ is widely used to represent the population standard deviation, not the standard error. This situation can lead readers to question if the authors have confused SD and SE.

Preparing Your Manuscript for Submission
The format for initial submission must be MS Word or PDF. The text for an initial submission should be in a 12-point Times New Roman font with a line spacing of 1.5 (i.e., 4 lines/inch).

Each line of the manuscript should be preceded by a line number, as needed to help with the reviewing process. We will not start the evaluation and review process until we receive a line-numbered manuscript.

A submitted manuscript may not be any larger than 30 MB. You will need to reduce the combined size of your files if your submission exceeds this limit. This limit is only relevant for the review process. After a paper is accepted, we will coordinate with you to account for large files, as needed to ensure full resolution of figures and other large content.

The manuscript should be assembled with the following parts and in the following order.

Title
A title should be specific, informative, and brief. Abbreviations and acronyms should be avoided, but, if used, they must be defined in the abstract.

Author List
The authors are listed after the title, followed by their affiliations (or an address). A numbered footnote is used to link each author to an affiliation. The affiliation for each author should indicate where the research work for the paper was done. An author may include a second footnote to indicate their current affiliation as shown by the following example:
Marie Curie1,2
1University of Paris, 2Institut du Radium
The corresponding author, which is the author responsible for correspondence with the journal, is indicated in the author list by an asterisk marker, and a footnote with an email address, as shown by the following example:

• Corresponding author: charles.darwin@beagle.org

Abstract
The abstract is a concise (< 300 words), freestanding summary of the paper. All abbreviations must be defined within the abstract. Referral to external information, such as a reference, a table, or a figure, is not allowed.

Keywords
Authors should provide at least three keywords that summarize the topic, content, and/or focus of the paper. Authors are free to design their own keywords or to use those in common usage (for example, USGS Keywords).

Main Text

1. Sections: The main text should be divided into sections, each with its own heading. Sections are numbered with Arabic numerals (1,2,3, etc.), and three section levels are allowed. Consider the following example:
   1. INTRODUCTION
      1.1. Basic Ideas
      1.1.1. Definition of an idea
2. Footnotes: Footnote comments are allowed in the main text, but this option should be used sparingly.
3. Citations: AJS uses different styles and rules for citations and references to published and unpublished sources. For published sources, we follow the style in the Publication Manual of the APA, 7th Edition, 2020. See this pdf for a short summary of the style for citations, and the common examples included below.
     The term “publish” is derived from the Latin word publicare meaning to “make public”. For our purposes, a published source is defined as content that is publicly accessible, either in print or digital form. Examples are journal articles, books, theses, dissertations, databases, software releases, technical reports, etc., as long as they are publicly available. Publication provides no guarantee of quality or reliability, but it does allow for others to independently evaluate the source.

   In AJS papers, the citation of a published source is matched by a full reference in the References section. We allow in-text citations of unpublished sources, but those citations are not included in the References section.

  The examples below provide a summary of the in-line style for the citation of published sources, including papers that are “in press”.

Author Type	Parenthetical Citation	Narrative Citation
One Author	(Fisher, 1953)	Fisher (1953)
Two Authors	(Dewey & Pitman, 1973)	Dewey and Pitman (1973)
Three or more Authors	(Davis et al., 1983)	Davis et al. (1983)

  A list of multiple citations should be sorted in alphabetical order, as illustrated by these examples:
Parenthetical citations:
(Davis et al., 1983; Dewey & Pitman, 2015; Fisher et al., 1953; )
Narrative citations:
Davis et al. (1983), Dewey & Pitman (2015), and Fisher et al. (1953)

  Unpublished items should be directly cited in the text, as shown by these examples:
(F. A. Adams et al., unpublished data, 2021; S. W. Jones, personal communication, 2022; G. S. Smith, written communication, 2020).

4. Equations. Equations should be centered on the page and be numbered sequentially with the numbers appearing in parentheses on the right margin. Equations are referenced in the text as equation (1), or in parentheses as (eq 1) or (eqs 14 and 15). If the word “equation” begins a sentence, it should be capitalized, as in: Equation (1).
     For the initial submission, equations can be prepared using any method (MS Word, Latex, etc.). For publication, the manuscript and equations must be provided in files created using a current version of MS Word.

5. Tables. Each table must be submitted as a single file. Tables must be prepared using the Table option in MS Word. Each table is numbered sequentially, given their relative placement in the paper. A table number and a brief descriptive title are included at the top of the table, such as: “Table 1. Friction coefficient for sliding.” Use only separate cells, ordered lists, or unordered lists to separate content within the same cell into individual lines. Do not use spaces, tabs, html tags, or manual line breaks inside a table. Symbols indicating statistical significance should appear in the same cell as the value and should not have their own column.

   Individual values may be highlighted in a table using boldface, italic, or shading. Only use a single variety of shading, and a single font size. Underlining is not permitted. Text color is limited to black. (Note that any shading will be converted by the publisher with a single standardized variety of shading.)

  Tables are numbered sequentially based on their relative placement in the paper. In the text, each table is referenced using the term table in lower case, followed by its number. Examples are: table 1, or (table 1), or Table 1, if it begins a sentence.

6. Figures. Figure should be prepared in one of the following raster formats: JPEG, TIFF, or PNG (vector formats, such as EPS and PDF, not allowed). The raster resolution should be at least 300 dpi, so ensure sufficient resolution in the published paper.

  Each figure must be submitted as a single file, including composite figures (with multiple parts). The figure must fit within the print limits for a single published page (17.25 x 25.5 cm, 6.8 x 10.0 inch). Larger figures can be included as Supplementary Information. Each part of a composite figure should be labeled with successive upper-case letters (A, B, C, …).

  Figures are numbered sequentially based on their relative placement in the paper. In the text, each figure is referenced using the term figure in lower case, followed by its number. Examples are: figure 1, or Figure 1, if the reference begins a sentence. An abbreviation is used in parentheses, such as: (fig. 1), and when used at the beginning of a figure caption, such as: “Fig. 1. Plots showing Y versus Zr.”. The following examples illustrate how to refer to the parts of a composite figure: figure 1A or (fig. 3A and D).

  The authors are responsible for obtaining permission to reproduce a previously published figure, and that permission should be noted in the figure caption.

7. Acknowledgments. This section is indicated funding sources, and to thank colleagues, other contributors, and reviewers.

8. Author Contributions. This section provides a brief summary of each authors’ contribution to the paper.

9. Data and Supplementary Information. This section reports on the nature of and location of data and supplementary information that are essential to the paper but too large to report in the paper. Authors are encouraged to archive databases, computer codes, and the results of numerical experiments, as needed to support their paper. Data and software citations should also be in the References section. AJS maintains an online repository for data and supplemental information. The Zenodo operates an open-access online repository that is well suited for posting computer codes and results, and datasets. Zenodo provides DOI links, which provide an easy way to reference the authors’ contributions in the References section.

10. References. All citations in the paper must be fully referenced in this section, except for citations to unpublished sources. The references must follow the style described in the Publication Manual of the APA, 7th Edition, 2020. Each reference should include the names of all of the authors, the year of publication, and the full title of the publications, along with the source of the publication, and its DOI link, if available. The DOI link should be written in the form: https://doi.org/xxxxx. The following examples are for a journal paper, a book, and software contribution, respectively.

Manning, C. E., & Bird, D. K. (1991). Porosity evolution and fluid flow in the basalts of the Skaergaard magma-hydrothermal system, east Greenland. American Journal of Science, 291(3), 201-257. https://doi.org/10.2475/ajs.291.3.201

Hox, J. J., Moerbeek, M., & van de Schoot, R. (2017). Multilevel Analysis: Techniques and Applications (3rd ed.). Routledge.

Evangelos Moulas, Boris Kaus, & Bjorn Jamtveit. (2022). Dynamic Pressure Variations in the Lower Crust Caused by Localized Fluid-Induced Weakening (LaMEM input files). Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6538290