Geological Controls on Mineralogy and Geochemistry of the Permian and Jurassic Coals in the Shanbei Coalfield, Shaanxi Province, North China

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Abstract

Comment: The abstract should be one paragraph and up to 200 words as stated by the journal’s guidelines.

Suggestion: Reduce text and merge to one paragraph.

 

Comment: The abstract should begin by stating the broader context. Instead it starts directly by referring to the case study.

Suggestion: Begin with a more general sentence that will gradually lead to the paper’s topic.

 

Comment: In some lines (e.g. 17, 18 and in following ones) specific references are used (No.1, No.2, etc.) that will be explained later in the paper. Furthermore, detailed reference is made in many elements (e.g. in lines 24, 25 - P, Nb, Ta, etc.).

Suggestion: Don’t be so specific and detailed in the abstract. State the main findings of the work in a general framework.

 

Comment: Methods of research are not referred in the abstract.

Suggestion: State in few words the field (sampling, etc.) and lab work (XRD analysis, etc.) that took place in this work.

 

Comment / Suggestion: A general conclusion would be nice for the last sentence of the abstract. E.g. “The findings of this work, offer a new perspective in the understanding of … and will be useful for …”

 

Key words

Comment: All key words are included in the title. All academic search engines (e.g. Scopus, Google Scholar, etc.) search for relevant words both in title and in key words.

Suggestion: Try to describe the title with different but relevant words, or add new ones that describe the topic of the paper (e.g. “underground coal mine”). This will help the paper to gain more readability.

 

Introduction

Comment / Suggestion: At the end of the Introduction state briefly the main conclusions of the paper and why this work is important.

 

Comment / Suggestion: Again (like in the abstract) there is no need in this part to be so detailed and specific (e.g. lines 48, 57).

 

Geological setting

Comment / Suggestion: Please improve the quality of figures 1 and 2. The figures are hard to read especially when printed. Maybe in figure 1 coordinates would be useful, if someone wants to specifically locate the area.

 

Samples and Methods

No comments

 

Results

Comment / Suggestion: In sub-paragraphs 4.2.3.x (lines 175, 192, 200, 207, 212) please assign a clear title and start the paragraph from the next line.

 

Comment: The analysis of the results shows how much, detailed and thorough work the authors did. But the work is presented in a tiresome and very dense way, fact that makes the reader to lose sight of the important points of the analysis and get lost in a chaos of values and ranges. I started counting how many brackets with values are written in this section but I stopped after a while. In general, I believe the “Results” section needs to be reorganized and simplified.

Some suggestions: (a) Avoid referring to all these values inside brackets in the text. Instead state the most important ones (the ones you want for the reader to remember and to direct his/her attention on). For all the other values just refer to the corresponding table. (b) Please separate in a clear way figure 3 form figure 4, figure 5 from 6 and figure 7 from 8. The way these figures are presented (side by side) is a bit confusing. I think I would be better if the second figure of each pair was under the first. (c) As a lot of work was done, a lot of tables were produced. Maybe an appendix could be considered (I don’t know if this journal uses appendices) in order to make the main text body lighter. (d) Table 5 is a bit hard to follow. Maybe you could restructure it.

 

Discussion

Comment / Suggestion: Please improve figure 13 (it’s a bit blurry, especially when printed).

 

Comment / Suggestion: Please rephrase the sentence in lines 444-445, something went wrong. It starts with “In the adjacent coal mine” and ends with “in different coal mines”. I think the meaning is lost.

 

Conclusions

Comment / Suggestion: Add a few sentences at the end about (a) the usefulness (e.g. methodology, new knowledge, etc.) that this very good work might have in researchers, academics, stakeholders, etc. of other countries (i.e. in a broader context, wider than the studied areas) and (b) future work that the authors are planning to do to expand their research on this topic, or suggestions about future research directions that maybe other researchers will follow. I think this will be a very suitable closure and will add extra value in this already very interesting research paper.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

We were pleased to know that our work was rated as potentially acceptable for publication in Minerals, subject to major revision. Thank you very much for taking your time and effort to review this manuscript. I really appreciate all your comments and suggestions that have enabled us to improve the quality of this manuscript. Based on the instructions provided in your letter, we uploaded the file of the revised manuscript. And we response point-by-point to your comments as the upload Word file. 

The authors express great gratitude to the editors for considering publishing this paper in the “Minerals”.

Yours sincerely,
Yunfei, Shangguan

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The paper has potential, but needs of revision. The comments are attached as a PDF file. 

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

We were pleased to know that our work was rated as potentially acceptable for publication in Minerals, subject to major revision. Thank you very much for taking your time and effort to review this manuscript. I really appreciate all your comments and suggestions that have enabled us to improve the quality of this manuscript. Based on the instructions provided in your letter, we uploaded the file of the revised manuscript. And we response point-by-point to your comments as the upload Word file. 

The authors express great gratitude to the editors for considering publishing this paper in the “Minerals”.

Yours sincerely,
Yunfei, Shangguan

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Thank you very much for taking under consideration my comments.

I hope I helped a little bit.

I believe your work deserves to be published.

Keep up the good work.

 

All the best.

 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer:

      Thank you very much for your suggestions which helped us improve our work's quality to reach up to the requirements of the Minerals. 

      Best wishes

Shangguan Yunfei

SGyunfei@cug.edu.cn

Reviewer 2 Report

The paper needs a new rework. I recommend that the authors think carefully and check the work carefully. 

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

We were pleased to know that our work was rated as potentially acceptable for publication in Journal, subject to adequate revision. Thank you very much for taking your time and effort to review this manuscript. I really appreciate all your comments and suggestions that have enabled us to improve the quality of this manuscript. Based on the instructions provided in your letter, we uploaded the file of the revised manuscript. Accordingly, we have outlined the changes in detail point by point (Please see the attachment).The authors express great gratitude to the editors for considering publishing this paper in the “Minerals”.

Yours sincerely,

Yunfei,shangguan

 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 3

Reviewer 2 Report

The work has improved. Some terminological inaccuracies must be corrected.

 

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear Editor and Reviewers,

We were pleased to know that our work was rated as potentially acceptable for publication in Journal, subject to adequate revision. Thank you very much for taking your time and effort to review this manuscript. I really appreciate all your comments and suggestions that have enabled us to improve the quality of this manuscript. Based on the instructions provided in your letter, we uploaded the file of the revised manuscript. Accordingly, we have outlined the changes in detail point by point and detailed modifications are marked in the revised manuscript in blue for the Reviewer 2.

The authors express great gratitude to the editors for considering publishing this paper in the “Minerals”.

Yours sincerely,
Yunfei Shangguan