Holocene Evolution of the Pearl River Delta: Mapping Integral Isobaths and Delta Progradation

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

I consider this work as an almost perfect product both in terms of design and research development. Perhaps some information is missing on the micropaleontological content that, although contained in other works published separately, could have been briefly stated here. Despite everything, they are not necessary for the explanation but could have improved its formal appearance.

There is only one sentence in section 4.1.3. which seems to me to be fortunately not expressed. The authors write that (254-255) "The lithofacies of the late Holocene, since 5000 years BP, represents a sedimentary stage of marine regression characterized by increasing alluvial sediments which indicate progressive deltaic progradation [11,18,40-42].) I think that perhaps the wording is unfortunate and could be changed since a "progressive deltaic progradation" does not imply a "sedimentary stage of marine regression". In my opinion this should be corrected by eliminating the term "marine regression".

Actually in lines (507-510), "Sedimentary facies of the late Holocene since 5000 years BP is characterized by increasing alluvial sediments, revealing a rapid transformation from marine to fluvial facies. Around 2000 years BP, in the context of little accommodation space in the PRD, substantial river discharge and increasing fluvial transportation accelerated the evolution of the deltaic plain." the wording is perfect. Nothing more and my congratulations

Author Response

We would like to thank the reviewer for careful and thorough reading of this manuscript and for the valuable comments and constructive suggestions, which help to improve the quality of this manuscript. This manuscript has been carefully revised and most of the comments addressed by reviewer has been intensively revised as shown in the revised manuscript with tracked changes version which we hope meet with approval. The responds to the comments or questions are listed as below.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear Authors,

I have read your interesting report. It is a manuscript that is well structured and well written both scientifically and by English language perspective. The manuscript records interesting variations of coastal morphology and associated delta sedimentary system evolution. It is also a good high quality data record of the potential sea level fluctuation, sedimentation rate variations and paleoenvironmental record of low-lands. The manuscript has potentially high impact.

I have identified only minor issues I think easy to fix. Most of them are rather serving the manuscript to be more globally relevant after minor revision. Some addition in the mid-section of the Discussion to compare the recovered data with other regions outside the China coastal realm. I think it would be particularly interesting comparison of the results published here with iconic delta sites in other places, just to get a sense how globally relevant the data presented here.

Overall I think after minor revision the manuscript can be accepted.

Best regards,

 

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

English is fine

Author Response

We would like to thank the reviewer for careful and thorough reading of this manuscript and for the valuable comments and constructive suggestions, which help to improve the quality of this manuscript. This manuscript has been carefully revised and most of the comments addressed by reviewer has been intensively revised as shown in the revised manuscript with tracked changes version which we hope meet with approval. The responds to the comments or questions are listed as below.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

This is generally a nice paper that is put together well. Some minor changes are needed however. I refer to line numbers.

19-20. You need to state something about age constraints on this, or were you using correlative surfaces?

23. maximum Holocene transgression

27-30 delete this, this is irrelevant

103 delete these abbreviations, they are unnecessary and you do not refer to these again anyway

119 you need to say something about the database, where it is? open access? are details of the locations/properties of the database available in the supplementary data?

152 summarized the sequences on what basis? lithofacies? bounding surfaces?

table 1, please add indicative thicknesses of these units

244 and throughout. Please be clear whether RC ages are cal or not, some are and some appear not to be. You should recalibrate where possible anyway (and this needs to be mentioned in the methods)

fig 3 and 5, make the fig bigger, it can stretch across the page

353 is this a cal age?

fig 6, ok but this is not mentioned in the methods or aims, please make sure you do this

fig 7 ok but please see also Cendrero et al 2022, ESR

 

Author Response

We would like to thank the reviewer for careful and thorough reading of this manuscript and for the valuable comments and constructive suggestions, which help to improve the quality of this manuscript. This manuscript has been carefully revised and most of the comments addressed by reviewer has been intensively revised as shown in the revised manuscript with tracked changes version which we hope meet with approval. The responds to the comments or questions are listed as below.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf