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Change Coming to Lithosphere

GSA is participating in a new open-access, community-led Why a New Journal?
journal being launched by GeoScienceWorld (GSW), a nonprofit GSW is looking for ways to help its member publishers deal
collaborative and comprehensive resource for research and com- with the changes brought by mandated open-access proposals,
munications in the earth sciences. (GSA is a founding publisher which are gaining ground around the world. While GSA made
of GeoScienceWorld, and its journals and books are hosted on Lithosphere and Geosphere fully open access in 2018, other
the GSW platform.) founding publishers of GSW have fewer open-access options.
As part of GSA’s commitment to this new publishing effort, The community journal will get papers in two ways: direct sub-
the society has reached an agreement with GSW to have missions and papers transferred from other GSW-participating
Lithosphere be the vehicle for the community journal. Because societies. Transferred papers will be those that the society has
this does involve transferring ownership of Lithosphere to GSW, determined are not right for its journal(s) but that still have merit
this is a big change. and should be considered for publication. Examples include papers
This decision wasn’t made lightly and was debated at length that: don’t match the scope or size restrictions of a particular jour-
by GSA Council. “We welcome the expanded support GSW’s nal; deliver a nice compilation of data but no new insights or
involvement will bring to the journal,” said GSA Executive broader implications; show valuable confirmatory results that
Director Vicki McConnell. “GSA sees this partnership with aren’t always published (e.g., the second instance of a mineral dis-
GSW as a reflection of its mission to advance geoscience covery); or show null results (an experiment or model was tried but
research and discovery and to allow Lithosphere to grow.” didn’t work—of value to those pursuing the same line of thought).
Lithosphere will continue to publish under GSA for the rest of
2019. The journal will retain its impact factor, and all archival
content published by GSA will continue to be open access and
freely available just as it is today.

E-BOOK DOWNLOADS
•
each E
• R
AT T H E G S A S T O

This monumental project, describing and illustrating the geology
and geophysics of North America, was created to help celebrate
GSA’s 100th anniversary. The collection of discipline- and region-
GSA’s 100th anniversary. The collection of discipline- and region-
speci c books that once lled a oor-to-ceiling bookcase
speci c books that once lled a oor-to-ceiling bookcase
can now be read on your tablet or computer.
Volumes include:
• Centennial Field Guides

• Continent-Scale Map Series
• Continent-Ocean Transects
• Geology of North America Series

Start exploring at rock.geosociety.org/store/.

16 GSA Today | October 2019