Wildfires and Monsoons: Cryptic Drivers for Highly Variable Provenance Signals within a Carboniferous Fluvial System

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Manuscript is sound an appropriately designed. Methods and results are clearly presented and meaningfully interpreted. Conclusions follow the results. Associated graphics is of appropriate quality and clearly connected and cited within the text. References cited are comprehensive and appropriate.

Therefore, I found this manuscript can be accepted and published in the present form.

Author Response

No corrections were required.

We thank you for your review.

Reviewer 2 Report

This is an interesting contribution.  Detailed comments are present in the annotated pdf.  It is generally well written and takes a commendable approach to provenance of looking beyond just zircon ages by including apatite dates and chemistry and feldspar Pb isotope data.  The extreme heterogeneity found within this one unit with relative minor differences in stratigraphic position is a really important (and in ways, frightening!) finding with implications for the ways a lot of us sample in provenance studies, and the tie in to wildfires and such is quite interesting.  To summarize my points in the pdf, the main issues I have relate to what seem like careless omissions in terms of data presentation.  There is a major issue with the feldspar Pb data.  Error bars are missing for the 206Pb/204Pb and seem unusually small for the 7/4 ratios.  Importantly, the ability to independently evaluate reproducibility is absent as there is no tabulated data for the reference materials!  You are also missing the apatite trace element results in the tables; the tab in the Excel file labeled apatite trace elements just contains a duplicate of the U-Pb data.  Fix this and the other stuff mentioned in the pdf and this will be in pretty good shape.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Please see attachment.

 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

This manuscript by Anders et al. presents zircon and apatite U-Pb geochronology, trace elements in apatite, and Pb in K-feldspar data from Mullaghmore Sandstone Formation to conduct provenance analysis and characterize the different controls on fluvial process and hinterland evolution. Overall, the MS is well-written, and presents an intriguing data set to discuss the sedimentary response of provenance changes and changing paleoenvironmental and paleoclimate conditions. The paper subject is undoubtedly suitable for Geosciences, and I recommend the following revisions to the MS:

Authors are suggested to add the numerical ages of all the periods, epoch, and ages when they first appear in the MS, such as Arundian and Tournaisian on Page 4, etc.

I also suggest authors to show a map with all the potential source domains at the beginning of the MS, it will help readers have a big picture in mind while reading.

Below is a line-by-line review of the MS:

P4 L124: Here is subtitle 1.2, but there is no subtitle 1.1 before it.

P4 L149: Explain TS biozone.

P4 L150: Explain MFZ11, what is 11 here? The same for MFZ12 in L151.

P5 L199-204: what are the references for this paragraph?

P5 L205-208: are they concluded by this MS or previous publications?

P6 L231-232: could you also mark these five units in Figure 2?

P17 L591-594: Further explain the different interpretations for zircon and apatite variability.

P19 L674-675: I recommend the following references related with the monsoon impacts on sediment delivery in the Indus drainage system, sourcing from Himalayas.

1. Bookhagen, B. et al., 2005. Late Quaternary intensified monsoon phases control landscape evolution in the northwest Himalaya.
2. Clift, P.D. et al., 2008. Holocene erosion of the Lesser Himalaya triggered by intensified summer monsoon.

3. Li, Y. et al., 2018. Continuous Holocene input of river sediment to the Indus Submarine Canyon.

P20 L702-705: what does it mean? Consider rephrasing this sentence.

Figure 2: what are the laminated wedges between logs?

Figure 5: lack of labels a-e in the figure.

Figures 6 and 7: The labels in the figures are units 1-5, to confirm, these are also samples 1-5, right?

Figure 8: To confirm, each plot in the figure is dependent so the height of the peaks among different plots are not in the same scale so not comparable, right?

Figure 9: Explain all the abbreviations in the figure such as LEW, RC, SB in the figure caption.

Author Response

Please see attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

I am satisfied with the revisions.