Sea Caves and Other Landforms of the Coastal Scenery on Gozo Island (Malta): Inventory and New Data on Their Formation

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The article is well written, the research methods are suitable for caves. 

Minor proofreading of the English language is suggested.

Author Response

English has been revised by a native language reader

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear authors,

This manuscript is a summary of all the sea-caves found around the coastline of Gozo Island. The authors recreated the geometry of some of the sea-caves using photogrammetry, iPhone Lidar and manual instrumentation to measure the dimensions of some of them (morphometric parameters) and defined the type of entrance. The manuscript is suitable for publication after minor revision, though with suggestions that must be followed.

Detailed suggestions:

Line 28: Is ‘’shelter’’ a new term that you are proposing for the first time? If yes, then you should insert additional information in the text describing exactly the characteristics of this landform to enhance its significance throughout the text. If not, please provide citations where this landform has been detected before. Also, if it is a new term please add a paragraph mentioning its significance in the Discussion.

Line 62-64: not needed please remove

Figure 1: Please add the source of the map where the data were acquired from. Also, figures 1 and 5 should be merged. E.g. you could add the sea-caves on Fig.1c

Line 74: You could add as section 2.1 Geomorphological Setting and Line 123 -- 2.2 Climatic and oceanographic setting

Line 92: …the mainland of Malta.

Line 107: were detached

Line 112-119: replace per cent with %

Line 135: I believe that the methodological part is very extended and could be reduced.

Line 147: please rephrase. Your work is presenting and describing data regarding the dimensions of caves’ entrances and interiors. It is not analysing this data.

Figure 2. Please use capital letters for images if you use capitals for the text.

Line 160-161: this information does not add anything to the text, please remove.

Figure 4: the orientation of the models does not help the reader to understand something from this image. Please put the images in portrait orientation and enlarge them as much as possible.

Line 232: I suggest to change the title to ‘’iPhone LIDAR survey’’

Line 241: delete in – replace is

Line 250: Table 1 is not a necessary table, please keep the information only inside the text.

Line 327: Figure 7 is not adding any important information for the reader, should be merged or removed from text. Alternatively could be moved to the supplementary material.

Figures 10 and 11: In fig. 10 you are plotting the frequency of occurrence of each cave for different variables (location, cave type, lithology). Also, in Fig. 11 is the same concept with the difference that you add the information of the cave type with different color. I think you could just keep Fig. 11 and rename this chapter to ‘’ Evaluation of sea-cave distribution and lithology’’ or something similar. 

Alternatively, you could create a heatmap showing the higher occurrence of the sea-caves depending on the spatial distribution and keep only fig. 11 where you will replace the upper right image with that heatmap.

 

Line 443: ad—and

Minor editing of English language required

Author Response

Line 28: Is ‘’shelter’’ a new term that you are proposing for the first time? If yes, then you should insert additional information in the text describing exactly the characteristics of this landform to enhance its significance throughout the text. If not, please provide citations where this landform has been detected before. Also, if it is a new term please add a paragraph mentioning its significance in the Discussion.

The term is used for the first time, so we added additional information in the paragraph discussions. These landforms are similar to marine notches (Trenhaile, 2015;  Antonioli et al., 2015), or inland notches, but little extended, or very localized.

Line 62-64: not needed please remove

We removed the line as suggested by the reviewer.

Figure 1: Please add the source of the map where the data were acquired from. Also, figures 1 and 5 should be merged. E.g. you could add the sea-caves on Fig.1c

Ok, we added the source where the data were acquired from. Anyway, we did not merged Figure 1 and 5 because the second one shows the results of our research, or the inventory of sea caves that we collected during our surveys.

Line 74: You could add as section 2.1 Geomorphological Setting and Line 123 -- 2.2 Climatic and oceanographic setting

Ok, we added the sub-paragraphs.

Line 92: …the mainland of Malta.

Ok, we changed as suggested.

Line 107: were detached

Ok, we changed as suggested.

Line 112-119: replace per cent with %

Ok, we changed all %s.

Line 135: I believe that the methodological part is very extended and could be reduced.

We slightly reduced the methodological part of the paper trying to accommodate the reviewer's suggestions.

Line 147: please rephrase. Your work is presenting and describing data regarding the dimensions of caves’ entrances and interiors. It is not analysing this data.

Ok, we changed the text as suggested.

Figure 2. Please use capital letters for images if you use capitals for the text.

Ok, we changes as suggested.

Line 160-161: this information does not add anything to the text, please remove.

Ok, we removed it.

Figure 4: the orientation of the models does not help the reader to understand something from this image. Please put the images in portrait orientation and enlarge them as much as possible.

Ok, we changed it.

Line 232: I suggest to change the title to ‘’iPhone LIDAR survey’’

Ok, we changed in this way.

Line 241: delete in – replace is

Ok

Line 250: Table 1 is not a necessary table, please keep the information only inside the text.

Ok, we removed it and we changed the reference to the following table.

Line 327: Figure 7 is not adding any important information for the reader, should be merged or removed from text. Alternatively could be moved to the supplementary material.

We chose to leave the figure because…

Figures 10 and 11: In fig. 10 you are plotting the frequency of occurrence of each cave for different variables (location, cave type, lithology). Also, in Fig. 11 is the same concept with the difference that you add the information of the cave type with different color. I think you could just keep Fig. 11 and rename this chapter to ‘’ Evaluation of sea-cave distribution and lithology’’ or something similar. Alternatively, you could create a heatmap showing the higher occurrence of the sea-caves depending on the spatial distribution and keep only fig. 11 where you will replace the upper right image with that heatmap.

We removed figure 10 and modified the text. Moreover we also slightly modified the text following the advice of the reviewer.

Line 443: ad—and

Ok, we changed.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

I have reviewed the manuscript “Sea caves and other landforms of the coastal scenery on Gozo island (Malta): inventory and new data on their formation”.  I think the manuscript is complete and well displayed. The authors present an extensive geological charectisation with high quality graphical information. Strongly appreciate the intense survey work in the field which has allowed a detailed census and description of the sea caves. The results are comprehensive, interesting and easy to read.

 Figure 1c.

I advise the authors to insert the contourlines in the map to make it more complete and readable.

I can only congratulate the authors for the manuscript.

 

 

Author Response

 Figure 1c.

I advise the authors to insert the contourlines in the map to make it more complete and readable.

Ok, we added contourlines in Figure 1.

I can only congratulate the authors for the manuscript.

Thank you very much for the appreciation.