Guidelines for Authors

Guidelines for Authors

Copyright transfer agreement

1. General Information

1.1. The Geophysical Research Journal, hereinafter referred to as Journal, is a scholarly peer-reviewed periodical that publishes original research articles, reviews, alerts of scientific events, and other relevant information on a wide range of theoretical and applied geophysics.

1.2. Scope

1.2.1. The Journal publishes materials on the following subjects:

• theory, methods, and results of regional and global geophysical studies including seismology, seismic forecasting and hazard assessment;
• theory, methods, and algorithms for processing and interpretation of geophysical data; mathematical aspects of modelling the geophysical fields and processes; computing procedures and geophysical software;
• methods and metrology of the field and observatory geophysical measurements and the results of these works;
• laboratory rock testing experiments and rock physics;
• geomagnetic, paleomagnetic, and rock magnetic studies;
• geospace research focused on the phenomena and processes in the Earth's atmosphere, ionosphere, and magnetosphere and their interaction with solid Earth;
• geophysical methods for prospecting and exploration;
• environmental and engineering geophysics;
• geophysical monitoring of natural and anthropogenic processes;
• physical processes associated with mining and production and other underground activities; their geophysical monitoring;
• geoinformatics: databases and knowledge bases in the Earth science; network technologies in organizing the observations, data exchange, and computations.

1.2.2. Information materials include:

• chronicles of scientific events;
• brief communications on the awards and jubilees; the obituaries;
• announcements of competitive selections for academic positions;
• calls for the research grant proposals announced by the research foundations;
• other relevant information on the activities of IPE RAS and other scientific institutions;

1.2.3. The Journal does not publish

• papers falling outside the scope of the Journal;
• intellectual content that has been already published in other journals or by other publishers;
• papers that do not contain any new information and results compared to the previous publications;
• papers containing factual, metrological, mathematical, or other errors that cannot be fixed;
• papers containing the statements and hypotheses that explicitly contradict the established scientific facts;
• fictional and journalistic essays in any fields including science;
• any information and announcements that are irrelevant to scientific research;
• materials containing the data referred to the official or commercial confidential information as determined by the acting legislation of the Russian Federation, departmental regulations, agreements, etc.;
• materials that contain insulting, calumniating, or knowingly false information about persons or organizations.

1.3. The Journal publication policies are determined by the Geophysical Research Journal Regulations (hereinafter referred to as Regulations) and by the Guidelines for submitting, processing, reviewing, and publishing original research papers and reviews in Geophysical Research Journal (see the Journal home page on https://portal.ifz.ru/geophysical-research).

2. Submission of Manuscripts

2.1. Original manuscripts can be submitted to the Journal:

• by e-mail to gr@ifz.ru;
• on electronic storage devices (preferably on CD) by mail to the Editorial Board of the Journal at the Schmidt Institute of Physics of the Earth of the Russian Academy of Sciences (IPE RAS), Bolshaya Gruzinskaya str., 10-1, Moscow, 123242, Russia.

2.2. Submission materials should include

2.2.1. Electronic files with the text of the manuscript (MS Word version 6.0 and higher), figures, tables, figure captions and table titles,  formatted in accordance with the GUIDELINES FOR AUTHORS, paragraph 3.

2.2.2. Integrated file of the manuscript, MS Word and (as possible) PDF, containing text and figures, tables, figure captions and table titles placed along the course of the presentation.

2.2.3. The complete information on all authors including the first, middle, and last names, affiliations, phone number, postal and e-mail addresses.

2.2.4. Cover letter indicating the corresponding author (indicating his current contact mobile and work phone number and e-mail address). In letter, authors may optionally propose reviewers, as well as the desire to publish the paper in the "Discussion" section. The cover letter can be given in electronic form.

3. Manuscript Formatting

3.1. Structuring the Manuscript

The guidelines for formatting and structuring of the manuscripts are based on the requirements lodged by the Higher Attestation Commission to the journals recommended for publishing the materials of dissertations in candidacy for a degree of a candidate or doctor of science, and on the requirements of Scopus data base.

3.1.1. Mandatory elements:

• UDC (Universal Decimal Classification) code;
• THE TITLE of the paper in Russian and English;
• the full name(s) of the author(s) (the last, first, and middle names) in Russian and English;
• names of the affiliated institutes or organizations, city, and country in Russian and English, with indication of the corresponding author and his e-mail address;
• the abstract (200--400 words) in Russian and English containing a brief description of the main points of the study including the statement of the problem, the data, and the results and provide a sufficiently full and clear idea of the work; authors should avoid using special characters (letters of the Greek alphabet, formulas, etc.) in the abstract text;
• the keywords in Russian and English (at most ten);
• the text of the paper (main section);
• information about funding (in specific section «Funding»);
• information about conflict of interest (in specific section «Conflict of Interest»);
• two lists of references, one for the Russian version and the other for the English version of the Journal  The examples of formatting the references are presented below. For the English version of the Journalwebsite, the titles of the papers that are originally published in Russian should be translated by the author into English. If the article was published in the English-translated journal, the reference to the English version of the quoted publication should be provided;
• the author(s) information according to the following example (in case of multiple-authored submission, the information should be provided for each author) in Russian and English:

ФАМИЛИЯ Имя Отчество – доктор физико-математических наук, профессор, ведущий научный сотрудник, Федеральное государственное бюджетное учреждение науки Институт физики Земли им. О.Ю. Шмидта Российской академии наук (ИФЗ РАН). 123242, г. Москва, Б.Грузинская ул., д. 10, стр. 1. Тел.: +7 (499) 254-xx-xx. E-mail: abcdef@ifz.ru

FAMILYNAME Givenname Middlename, Dr. Sci. (Phys.-Math.), Prof., Leading Researcher, Schmidt Institute of Physics of the Earth of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Bolshaya Gruzinskaya str., 10-1, Moscow, 123242, Russia. Ph.: +7 (499) 254 xxxx. E-mail: abcdef@ifz.ru.

3.3.2. Auxiliary elements:

• figures;
• figure captions in Russian and English;
• tables;
• table titles in Russian and English;
• acknowledgements (in specific section «Acknowledgements» after the main text of the paper).

3.2. Formatting of the Manuscript elements

3.2.1. The text of the article (main section) should be clearly structured into sections corresponding to the traditional presentation of scientific papers (for example, IMRAD - "Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion"). The presence of sections "Introduction" and "Conclusion" is mandatory.

3.2.2. The text should use Times New Roman font (12 pt) and one-and-half-spacing; all the pages should be numbered; the author's formatting should be minimal.

3.2.3. When cited in the text flow, the references to the publications should be enclosed in square brackets and have the following format: [Author (last name only!), year; Author, Author, year; Author, Author, Author, year]. If a quoted paper has more than three authors, the reference in the text should appear as [Author et al., year]. The references in the text flow should strictly correspond to the bibliographical description of the publications indicated in the list of references (in terms of the overall number of the references, the year of publication, and spelling of the authors' names).

3.2.4. The references to the figures should be enclosed in round brackets or without it: "Fig. 1", "(Fig. 1)", "Figs. 1, 2", or "Figs. 1-3". The repeated reference to the figure is formatted as "(see Fig. 1)".

3.2.5. The references to the tables should be enclosed in round brackets or without it: "Table 1", "(Table 1)", "Tables 1, 2", or "Tables 1-3". The repeated reference to the table is formatted as "(see Table 1)".

3.2.6. Formulas should be successively placed in the text flow and enumerated in the continuous order throughout the entire text starting from the first formula. The number of the formula is enclosed in round brackets and indicated on the right of the formula. It is preferable that the formulas are inserted using the MS Word's built-in Equation editor. The references to the formulas in the text should appear as (1), or (1), (2), or (1)-(3).

3.2.7. The sources included in the List of References should appear in the alphabetical order (according to the first letters of the name of the author or the first co-author) without numbering starting with papers in Russian and then papers on other languages. Irrespective of the number of the authors of the quoted publication, the names and initials of all the authors should be indicated in the List of References. If paper has a DOI (digital object identifier), it may be placed at the end of the reference.

List of References should contain:

- not less than 10 sources summarily;

- not less than 3 references to articles published in English language journal within the last 5 years;

- not less than 5 references to articles published within the last 10 years;

- number of self-references should be less than 20% of number of all references.

3.2.8. Examples of formatting the references for the English version of the Journal website

1. papers in the translated journals:

Ivanov I.I., Petrov P.P., On the principle of dimensions in geophysics, Izvestiya, Physics of the Solid Earth, 2010, vol. 46, no.1. pp. 10-15.

2. books in Russian:

Sidorov S.S., Geofizika i geologiya (Geophysics and geology), Moscow: Nauka, 2000. [In Russ].

3. papers in the Russian-language journals without translated version:

Kuznetsov K.K., Universal measurement system for geophysical research, Nauka i tekhnologicheskie razrabotki (Science and technological developments). 2018, No 7, pp. 94-100. [In Russ].

Petrov P.P, Ivanov I.I., Seismic noise in subduction zones, Voprosy inzhenernoi seismologii (Problems of Engineering Seismology), 2010, vol. 37, no. 5, pp. 1-9. DOI: 10.21455/VIS2010.5-1. [In Russ].

4. papers published in the Russian-language collections of papers and conference proceeding:

Kozlov K.K., On the new principle of geological survey, in Geologorazvedka na rubezhe XXI v. (Geological survey at the turn of the 21^st century), St. Petersburg, Nedra, 2000, pp. 12-15.  [In Russ].

Kozlov K.K., Current state of the methodology of geological survey, in Geologorazvedka v XXI veke: desyataya vserossiiskaya konferentsiya s mezhdunarodnym uchastiem (Geological survey in the XXI century: the tenth all-Russian conference with international participation), Novosibirsk, Nedra, 2010, pp. 1-10. [In Russ].

5. doctoral dissertations and extended abstracts of dissertation:

Popov P.P., Dissertation Title, Cand. Sci. (Eng.) Dissertation, City, 2000, 123 p. [In Russ].

Kuznetsov K.K., Dissertation Title, Extended Abstract of Doctoral Sci. (Geol.-Mieral.) Dissertation, City: Institute, 2000, 24 p. [In Russ].

6. papers in the English-language journals:

Cornell C.A., Engineering risk in seismic analysis, Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, 1968, vol. 54, no. 6, pp. 1583-1606.

Byerlee J., Friction of rocks, Pure and Applied Geophysics, 1978, vol. 116, no. 4-5, pp. 615-626. DOI: 10.1007/BF00876528.

7. books in English:

Gutenberg B., Richter C.F., Seismicity of the Earth and Associated Phenomena, Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1954, 310 p.

8). patents:

Ivanov I.O., RF Patent 12345678, 2000.

3.2.9. Figures should be presented in electronic version, each figure should be organized as a separate monochrome (grayscale) graphic file (jpeg, tiff, gif or png) with at least 300 dpi resolution. The PostScript (ps) graphic files are accepted with copies as jpeg files. If necessary, color figures can be published by the decision of the Editorial Board. Figures should content minimum text information, interpretation of symbols and explanations should be placed in the caption.

3.2.10. All the figure captions are presented in a single separate captions file in Russian and English.

3.2.11. Tables should be presented on the separate file. Each table should have the title in Russian and English and be numbered.

3.3. As a rule, size of the manuscript should not exceed 25 pages for the integrated file of the manuscript (see paragraph 2.2.2).

4. Author’s replies to the reviewers’ comments

Reviews that contain questions, and (or) critical comments together with decision of the Executive Member are sent to the authors who may

• withdraw the manuscript.
• revise the manuscript by addressing to questions and critical comments of all reviewers and make a list of corrections.
• if the authors reject (fully or partly) the reviewers' comments, they should provide a thorough and substantiated reasoning of the rejection in their reply.

The authors should resubmit the revised version of manuscript with the list of corrections and replies to reviewers' comments within one months after the decision on the manuscript is received by the corresponding author. Revised manuscript submitted after this deadline is processed by the Editorial Board as a new submission.

All the reviews are kept for three years in the Journal archive.

5. Accept for Publication

The Editorial Board of the Journal informs the authors, whose papers are accepted for publication. Together with the Editorial decision authors are provided with contact information of Executive Editor appointed for processing the manuscript for the publication.

After acceptance for publication (at the prepress stage), new changes to the article are not allowed by the authors. The corrections can only be made at the initiative and suggestion of the editor after approval by the author(s).

6. Publications in the Discussion Section of the Journal

Manuscripts based on guesswork or hypotheses that can neither be proven nor rejected at the present-day level of scientific knowledge as well as the debate manuscript with focus on positive criticism of scientific contributions published in any journals, books and other sources are considered for publication in the Discussion section of the Journal at the initiative of the authors or Editorial Board with consent of the authors. If the authors do not agree with the publication of their contribution in the Discussion section suggested by the Editorial Board, the article can be rejected.

The Discussion section does not publish the articles containing the features indicated above in section 1.2.3.

If manuscript intended for publication in the Discussion section contains criticism of other scientific publications, it can be sent to the authors of the criticized publications or to members of the scientific community addressed by the criticism with the invitation to enter in the discussion hosted by the Journal. The materials published in the Discussion section can also be debated by any other concerned scientists.

All materials published in the Discussion section, including responses to the discussion article, are subjected to mandatory peer review according to standard reviewing procedure in the Journal. The Editorial Board should promote prompt publication of replies to materials published in the Discussion section and, wherever possible, include the replies in the same issue with the debate article.

7. Rejection of a Manuscript

The rejection of a manuscript is ultimate. The reviewers' comments together with the decision of the Editorial Board are sent to the authors of the rejected manuscript. The further requests from the authors on rejected paper are not considered and are not replied by the Editorial Board. If rejected manuscript is resubmitted as a new submission, but without a substantial revision, it is not considered by the Editorial Board and is not accepted by the Journal.

8. Legal Matters

8.1. Authors of original research articles and discussions published in the Journal take full responsibility for the compliance with the legislation on copyright issues, official secrecy and commercial confidence, publication of materials covered by the copyright transfer agreements, contracts, or other juridical documents, patents, and licenses.

When submitting their manuscripts to the Editorial Board, authors confirm that the manuscript was not published (in full or in part) elsewhere and that it is not submitted for publication to another journal. Authors should provide the Copyright Agreement (as electronic scanned document) signed by all manuscript authors, by which the copyright on the publication (in Russian or English depending on language of submission) is transferred to the publisher. By transferring the manuscript to the Journal, the authors agree with the publication on the Journal website (both Russian and English versions) of the abstract of their article, list of references, and the author information and with subsequent (six months after printed copy issue) publication of the full text of the paper in the language of submission.

8.2. Publication fees are not charged and author's royalty is not paid by the Journal.