Author Guidelines
Supplemental Material
GSA encourages authors to follow established community standards for archiving specific types of data and to place important geoscience samples in long-term and well-documented repositories or collections, such as at museums, geological surveys, or universities. Please see the GSA Data Policy for Publications.
Authors can submit information that supplements and expands on their published article as Supplementary Material. (Newly acquired data presented only in graphs in the manuscript must be placed there.) This supplemental information should not be a necessary part of the understanding of the ideas and conclusions of the published paper. Examples are lists of species, geophysical data, geochemical data, etc.
Supplemental Material must be:
- Central to the main scientific conclusions of the paper.
- Likely to be usable by other scientists working in the field.
- Described with sufficient precision that other scientists can understand the information.
- In one of the required digital formats, within size constraints.
Examples
Supplemental files in Geology, GSA Bulletin, Lithosphere, and GSA Books papers can be found in the GSA Data Repository. Geosphere links Supplemental Files to articles via doi number (Geosphere samples). All supplemental files are available on request from GSA and are linked to the GSA Journals on DVD-ROM.
Proper Formatting
Whenever possible, submit your files in PDF format. You are encouraged to create your own merged PDF that contains all of your supplemental files (excluding multimedia files). In most cases, only one supplemental item per article will be posted. In order to make it easier for readers to download supplemental material, your files may be merged into one PDF file or compiled into one zipped file before online posting. (Your supplemental material will not be converted to PDF in cases where this would cause the data to be unusable, such as in the case of MS Excel tables.) The following file types are acceptable:
- Text files in MSWord, text, or rich text format (.doc, .docx, .rtf, .txt)
- Table files in MSExcel format (.xls, .xlsx)
- Figure files in .eps, .tif, .gif, .jpg. or .pdf format
- PDF files (.pdf)
- PowerPoint files (.ppt)
- Zipped files (.zip)
Multimedia files will be included as separate files in our data repository. We will create a separate link for each multimedia file. Multimedia files in .avi, .gif, .fla, .mov, .mp3, .mpeg, .mpg, .pdf (layered or interactive), .swf, and .wmv are the only supported file types.
Supplemental files for a GSA article in Geology, GSA Bulletin, or Lithosphere must not exceed 50 MB total size (for all files combined).
Citing Supplemental Information
Supplemental information will be referenced in the text of the manuscript with the file name and a link to the online file. A footnote will appear in the printed version of the journal—for example:
"Supplemental information (Tables S1–S2 and Figure S1) is available online at http://www.geosociety.org/datarepository/2016/."
Geosphere
Geosphere Supplemental/Interactive Files
One of the goals of Geosphere is to provide a venue for innovative papers and materials that don't fit into traditional print journal formats. The journal encourages the use of animations, maps with layers that can be manipulated, large format maps, and other multimedia, interactive file types.
Supplemental files should be in a format that does not require proprietary software or in a format that has a downloadable free viewer.
Geosphere accepts almost all format types for supplemental files, and the journal does not impose size limits on supplemental file types. However, the submission system will not accept files over 50 MB. If you have questions about your supplemental file format or its size, please contact Geosphere.
Supplemental Files can be zipped together and can appear as separate files within or linked to an accepted paper.
Citing Supplemental Files for Geosphere
Supplemental files must have an in-text citation, such as "Supplemental File 1," and the first citation should include a footnote to a caption for the supplemental file. The caption should include a brief description of the supplemental file and any software needed to view the file.