About Scottish Journal of Geology

About

Scottish Journal of Geology (SJG) is owned by the Geological Society of London and published by the Geological Society Publishing House.

Scottish Journal of Geology is a Plan S compliant journal.

Scope

Although published only since 1965, the Scottish Journal of Geology (SJG) has a long pedigree. It is the joint publication of the Geological Society of Glasgow and the Edinburgh Geological Society, which prior to 1965 published separate Transactions: from 1860 in the case of Glasgow and 1863 for Edinburgh.

Traditionally, the Journal has acted as the focus for papers on all aspects of Scottish geology and its contiguous areas, including the surrounding seas. The publication policy has always been outward looking, with the Editors encouraging review papers and papers on broader aspects of the earth sciences that cannot be discussed solely in terms of Scottish geology.

The diverse geology of Scotland continues to provide an important natural laboratory for the study of earth sciences; many seminal studies in geology have been carried out on Scottish rocks, and over the years the results of much of this work had been published in the Journal and its predecessors.

The Journal fully deserves its high reputation worldwide and intends to maintain its status in the front rank of publications in the Earth sciences.

Papers are invited from, and about, all areas of the world on engineering geology and hydrogeology topics, including but not limited to:

Editorial Board

The Editor-in-Chief, Heather Stewart (British Geological Survey, Edinburgh, UK) is supported by four additonal Editors.

Article types

Papers of general or specialist interest as research or review articles and discussions of earlier papers are welcome, together with perspective articles, book reviews (with a clear relevance to Scottish geology) and thematic collections publishing the results of relevant meetings and conference. Unless otherwise specified submissions should be up to 12 typeset journal pages (straightforward word count – no figures: 1 page = 1000 words). Longer submissions will be considered if justified by the content. There are no restrictions on figures/tables.

Research

Research articles are communications of original research. They report on primary and unpublished studies.

Review

Review articles are overviews of topics that have seen significant development or progress in recent years, with comprehensive depth and a balanced perspective.

Perspective

Perspectives (normally six pages or less) are commentaries putting published articles in the context of wider research and society. They generally present a brief discussion on a specific area of investigation. They can also be written by editors to summarize a thematic collection. They are a review of a collection of papers. The form of this type of article is that of a commentary. Perspectives express a personal opinion or perspective on a particular topic.

Discussion

Discussions on papers that have already appeared in the journal are acceptable. Discussions should be submitted within a year of the publication of the article discussed. Discussions should be succinct, written in an objective and scientific manner, and ideally about 1,000 words in length. Discussions should be submitted online as described above. Please ensure that you include your own address and all the references that you cite, even if they were in the original paper. Discussions should add something to the debate and not be just an additional observation.

Thematic collections

Thematic collections are curated sets of papers that present a timely snapshot of research in a topic of high current interest and importance. Edited by experts in the field, invited contributions undergo peer review to the normal SJG standards and are made available online upon acceptance. The papers are collated on a dedicated collection page on an ongoing basis which ensures that this significant research is visible to the community at the earliest opportunity.

Browse recent examples of thematic collections.

The subject of the collection must be of interest to a broad international audience and the science must be of the highest quality. All the papers must be acceptable to the Journal in their own right.

Thematic collections may have 'guest editors' who work closely with one of the regular Journal editors. The guest editors would be expected to write a short perspective to accompany the collection.

If you would like to submit a proposal for a thematic collection in SJG, we request the following information:

• Names and contact details of the guest editors
• A list of papers, including title and all authors
• A brief explanation of its aims and how it will enhance the Journal
• Details of the meeting that generated the set (if appropriate)
• Your planned schedule for submission, refereeing and editing

Early career research collection

Please submit your manuscript online and select ‘Early career research’ when prompted to select a category.

Coverage

This collection of papers covers a wide range of disciplines including (but not limited to): structural geology, sedimentology, stratigraphy, palaeontology, geochemistry and petrology, marine geology, isotope geology, environmental geology, energy, geomorphology and current geological processes, glaciology, geological conservation, and historical geology.

Eligible authors

The ethos is to attract as many good papers as we can, so ‘early career’ may include the following:

• Current PhD students, especially those in their 3rd year through to those recently completed
• MSc and MRes student research projects (dissertations)
• Academics, postdoctoral researchers, and practitioners who are within five years of completing their PhDs

Peer review

SJG operates a single-blind peer review process, in which reviewers remain anonymous to the authors throughout the review process. Should the reviewer wish for their name to be known to the author, they have the option to do so.

A member of the editorial board will send your paper to at least two referees. They will handle the papers through the reviewing and scientific editing procedure and approve the finalised script for publication.

We expect the reviewing and editing procedure to take about three to five months in the case of a paper requiring little revision. We are of course dependent on the goodwill of unpaid reviewers to achieve these targets.

Co-reviewing

GSL supports co-reviewing across its portfolio of publications. In co-review, invited reviewers have the option to involve a co-reviewer (often a junior colleague, for training purposes) in completing their report. All peer reviewers for GSL publications are expected to follow the Society’s ethical guidelines, including confidentiality of peer review.

You can keep track of this process through the online submissions package.

If an article is not accepted for publication, we may offer the author the opportunity to transfer their submission to another GSL journal or Lithosphere.

Publishing policies

SJG maintains the highest standards of publication and research ethics. All publishing policies can be found on our Publishing Policies page.

The Geological Society is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), and applies the principles of publishing best-practice as detailed in COPE’s Core Practices.

Abstracting and indexing

We work with our authors to help make their work as easy to discover as possible. SJG is currently included in the following abstracting and discovery service.

• CLOCKSS
• Crossref
• Current Contents
• Dimensions
• GeoArchive
• Geobase
• Geological Abstracts
• GeoRef
• Google Scholar
• Mineralogical Abstracts
• Petroleum Abstracts
• Science Citation Index
• Scopus

Open access

Authors may choose to make their article fully open access (sometimes called ‘gold open access’) on payment of an Article Processing Charge.

• 2024 APC price: £2,200/$3080/€2640 (+VAT as applicable as the time of invoicing and subject to change).
• Corresponding authors at institutions that have signed a read and publish agreement with the Geological Society of London, qualify for waived APCs. The list of qualifying institutions can be found on our open access page.

More information on the Society’s policy can be found on the  open access page . You will be asked to select your publishing option at the point of acceptance.

If you require open access but cannot pay the APC, the Geological Society also supports ‘green open access’, where you can post your final post-refereed version of the article to a website or repository 12 months after the online publication date. Authors must not post a typeset proof or final version to any website or repository unless the article is fully open access

Contact

For all enquiries, please contact the SJG Editorial Office at [email protected]. We produce a regular author newsletter. If you would like to receive this, please visit our subscriptions page or email our marketing team ([email protected]). You do not have to be a published author to sign up. You can unsubscribe at any time.