Instructions for authors

The "Rendiconti Online della Società Geologica Italiana" are published in quarterly volumes. The size of each volume is 21 × 29,7 cm (A4) and the printed portion is 18,5 × 24,4 cm, in two columns of 9 × 24,4 cm.

All Authors may submit to the journal original scientific contributions in English, concerning all aspects of geosciences. The instructions described below should be strictly followed by the authors. The non-compliance with these instructions may delay or prevent publication. Text and figures accepted for publication are copyright of the journal.

Types of contributions published in the Rendiconti Online della Società Geologica Italiana

The Rendiconti Online host two types of contributions: "short notes" and "articles".

Short notes - These are short reports (6 to 8 pages, including four figures or tables and no more than 30 references). Short notes must follow the usual structure of a scientific contribution (introduction, materials & methods, results, discussion, conclusions), and will follow a peer-reviewing process (2 reviewers).

Articles - These are original research peer-reviewed papers (2 reviewers). They should not exceed 15 printed pages, including references, figure/tables and captions. There are no limits for the number of figures/tables and references, even if it should be in due proportion with the length of the text.

Special/Thematic Issues

The organisers of workshops, conferences, scientific meetings and sessions of meetings, etc., should submit a proposal of a special/thematic issue to the Editor in Chief (EiC) of ROL; special/thematic issues consist of short notes only. The proposal should include i) names of possible Guest Editors (GE), ii) aim of the special/thematic issue, iii) list of contributors, iv) list of contributions, including the list of authors and title for each contribution.

The EiC and the board of Associate Editors (AE) will take under consideration the submitted proposal and will reply to the proponents within 30 days, informing them about the acceptance/denial of the special/thematic issue and providing the name of the Associate Editor (AE), who will take the scientific responsibility of the contributions published in the special/thematic issue.

Once the special/thematic issue is accepted, the GE make the call for papers to the invited authors setting a deadline for the contribution submission, then decide the name of the peer reviewers and commit possible revisions to be made. Final responsibility to accept/deny publication of each manuscript will be taken by the AE.

As a general rule for special/thematic issues, a single author may have up to a maximum of two papers.

Manuscript formatting

Manuscripts must be submitted in digital format, as per the following instructions.

The text must be in English language to enable and promote a wider dissemination of the contributions.

The manuscript, including references and figure captions, must be double spaced and prepared using a 'standard' font, preferably 12-point Times New Roman; line numbers must be added. For mathematical symbols, Greek letters and other special characters, use normal text or Symbol font. Word Equation Editor/MathType should be used only for formulae which cannot be produced using normal text or Symbol font.

An uninterrupted page of text contains about 6,500 characters. When considering final length of short notes or articles, authors have to consider that a full-page figure/table is equivalent to about 6,500 characters, a half-page figure/table to about 3300 characters and so on.

When submitting new or revised manuscripts, authors should state in a cover letter to the editor their rough estimate of the length of their paper in terms of number of pages of ROL. Authors of contributions that significantly exceed the limits stated here or specified by the editor will have to shorten their papers before acceptance, inevitably delaying publication.

Submit the text in the following order: Title, authors' names and addresses, telephone, fax and e-mail of the corresponding author. Below abstract/riassunto (max 1000 characters for short notes), key words/parole chiave, text, acknowledgements, references. Figures, captions and tables should be provided separately but with their position within the text indicated appropriately, using the format provided below.

Authors must observe a correct usage of stratigraphic terminology, avoiding the citation of incorrect or abandoned stratigraphic names. Web sites and publications such as the International Chronostratigraphic Chart, the International Stratigraphic Guide, the Italian Stratigraphic Guide, and the Catalogue of the Italian geological formations, are recommended as initial sources of stratigraphic information.

References and quotations in the text

References should be inserted in parentheses in the text in full for single- and dual-authored papers (e.g. Lyell & Bertrand, 1987), but using first author and "et al." for multiple-authored papers (e.g. Lyell et al., 1988). Authors should be written with uppercase initials. The order in the text should be chronological, then alphabetical. List all references cited in alphabetical order at the end of the article in the following standard form:

Reference to a journal article:
Morley C. & Chantraprasert S. (2022) - Plume-related, syn-rift, Neogene volcanism, the interplay with structure in Thailand and comparison with the East
African Rift. Ital. J. Geosci., 141(3), 295-333, https://doi.org/10.3301/IJG.2022.24.
Reference to a journal article with an article number:
Boutoux A., Briaud A., Faccenna C., Ballato P., Rossetti F. & Blanc E. (2021) - Slab folding and surface deformation of the Iran mobile belt. Tectonics, 40(6), e2020TC006300, https://doi.org/10.1029/2020TC006300.
Reference to a book:
Masotta M., Beier C., Mollo S. (2021) - Crustal Magmatic System Evolution: Anatomy, Architecture, and Physico-Chemical Processes. American Geophysical Union (AGU), 239 pp., https://doi.org/10.1002/9781119564485.
Reference to a chapter in an edited book:
Brenna M., Ubide T., Nichols A.R., Mollo S. & Pontesilli A. (2021) - Anatomy of Intraplate Monogenetic Alkaline Basaltic Magmatism: Clues From Magma, Crystals, and Glass. In: Masotta M., Beier C., Mollo S. (Eds), Crustal Magmatic System Evolution: Anatomy, Architecture, and Physico-Chemical Processes, American Geophysical Union (AGU), 79-103, https://doi.org/10.1002/9781119564485.ch4.
Reference to a sheet of the Geological Map of Italy at the scale 1:50.000 (Geological Survey of Italy and CARG Project)
Servizio Geologico d'Italia (2011) - Carta Geologica d'Italia alla scala 1:50.0000, F. 99 Iseo. ISPRA, Roma.
Reference to explanatory notes of the Geological Map of Italy at the scale 1:50.000 (Geological Survey of Italy and CARG Project)
Pantaloni M., Pichezzi R.M., D'Ambrogi C., Pampaloni M.L. & Rossi M. (2016) - Note Illustrative della Carta Geologica d'Italia alla scala 1:50.000, F. 280 Fossombrone. 96 pp., S.EL.CA. Firenze.

Please use the standard abbreviation of a journal's name according to the ISSN List of Title Word Abbreviations: http://images.webofknowledge.com/images/help/WOS/A_abrvjt.html. If you are unsure, please use the full journal title.

Headings

Please use a maximum of three levels of headings, hierarchically arranged as outlined below.

First Order Headings

Capital letters, centered, bold.
The first sentence after the heading begins after a blank line.

Second order headings
Capital letters, left margin.
The first sentence after the heading begins after a blank line.

Third order headings
Italic, left margin. The first sentence after the heading begins after a blank line.

Footnotes

Footnotes are not allowed.

Abbreviations

All abbreviations used in the text must be clearly explained the first time they appear.

Illustrations

The maximum available space for an illustration is 185×244 mm (full page) or 90×244 mm (column). Figures should be prepared with lettering and symbols of sufficient size and clarity to be reduced (Arial, 6-8 pt. minimum). After reduction, the smallest lettering should be a minimum of 2 mm high. Figures should be provided as .tif or .jpg format (at least with a resolution of 500dpi). Tables can be submitted as .xls or .doc files. Figures in the text must be quoted as fig. or figs., plates as pl. and tables as tab. (tabs). It is the responsibility of the authors to ensure that permission is granted for reproduction of any copyright material (reproduced figures, tables, text passages) and that this permission is acknowledged in their articles.

Gold and Green Open Access

Since 1 January 2018, the Rendiconti Online della Società Geologica Italiana has been offering the possibility to publish accepted articles in open access mode herein called "Gold Open Access".

This publication mode allows free and unrestricted access to the scientific articles for which this option will be chosen.

Authors who request the "Gold Open Access" option at the time of submission and/or acceptance of the manuscript will be asked to pay the charges required, for the activation of this mode, by the web portals used by the SGI for the national and international dissemination of its publishing products.

The fee of the Gold Open Access is € 500.00. A reduced fee (€ 300.00) would be applied if the corresponding author is an active member of the SGI or has an affiliation with an institution belonging to developing countries (Ministerial Decree no. 1455 of 09/06/2017).

Alternatively, the option of Green Open Access will be offered, which allows authors to self-archive the articles produced by their research, in institutional or disciplinary archives, or even in their personal sites, in the post-print format (the version approved for publication, containing the changes requested by both the reviewers and editorial board) not before a 24-month embargo period has elapsed, calculated from the last day of the month of publication of the paper version of the journal issue in which the article has appeared.It is a general principle of scholarly communication that the Editors of a learned journal are solely and independently responsible for deciding which articles submitted to the journal shall be published.

Proofs

The corresponding author will receive a single copy of the proof in PDF format. PDF proofs can be annotated using Adobe Reader DC. The proof must be sent after correction to the Editors within five days. Text or figure changes can be also listed in a .doc file.

Editorial policy

It is a general principle of scholarly communication that the Editors of a learned journal are solely and independently responsible for deciding which articles submitted to the journal shall be published. In making this decision, the Editor in Chief (EiC) is guided by policies of the journal's Editorial Board (EB) and constrained by such legal requirements in force regarding libel, copyright infringement and plagiarism. Anonymous Peer Reviewing is the adopted method for the scientific evaluation of the submitted manuscript.
The EB may decide for rejection upon submission if the manuscript does not matches the main topics defined by the subject category to which the journal belongs (see JCR by Thomson Reuters), the corresponding author has not accepted to explicitly declare the originality of the manuscript, it is shown that manuscript is either a duplicates of significant parts of already published papers.
An outcome of this principle is the importance of the scholarly archive as a permanent, historic record of the transactions of scholarship. Articles that have been published shall remain extant, exact and unaltered as far as is possible. However, very occasionally circumstances may arise where an article is published that must later be retracted or even removed. Such actions must not be undertaken lightly and can only occur under exceptional circumstances.
This policy has been designed to address these concerns and to take into account current best practice in the scholarly and library communities. As standards evolve and change, we will revisit this issue and welcome the input of scholarly and library communities. We believe these issues require international standards and we will be active in lobbying various information bodies to establish international standards and best practices that the publishing scientific societies can adopt.

Article Withdrawal

Used for articles in Press that represent early versions of articles and sometimes contain errors, or may have been accidentally submitted twice. Occasionally, but less frequently, the articles may represent infringements of professional ethical codes, such as multiple submission, bogus claims of authorship, plagiarism, fraudulent use of data or the like.
Articles in Press (articles that have been accepted for publication but which have not been formally published and will not yet have the complete volume/issue/page information) that include errors, or are discovered to be accidental duplicates of other published article(s), or are determined to violate
our journal publishing ethics guidelines in the view of the editors (such as multiple submission, bogus claims of authorship, plagiarism, fraudulent use of data or the like), may be "Withdrawn" from GeoScienceWorld. Withdrawn means that the article content (HTML and PDF) is removed and replaced with a HTML page and PDF simply stating that the article has been withdrawn according to the Editorial policy.

Article Retraction

Breaches of professional ethical codes, such as multiple submission, bogus claims of authorship, plagiarism, fraudulent use of data or the like, are sanctioned by the Italian Geological Society.
One of the conditions of submission of a manuscript for publication through the https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/gft is that authors declare explicitly that the manuscript is NOT UNDER CONSIDERATION for publication elsewhere. Re-use of any data should be appropriately cited. As such this article represents a severe abuse of the scientific publishing system. A retraction will be used to correct these events.
The retraction of an article by its authors or the editorial board under the advice of members of the scholarly community has long been an occasional feature of the learned world. Standards for dealing with retractions have been developed by a number of library and scholarly bodies, and this best practice is adopted for article retraction also by the Italian Geological Society.
In the case of a request of retraction signed by the authors for duplication due to a submission error, a retraction note titled "Retraction: [article title]" signed by the authors is published in the paginated part of a subsequent issue of the journal and listed in the contents list. In the electronic version the notice will appear in place of the link to the original article, and the DOI is renominated as "article retraction action".
The manuscript would not be anymore available on-line.
In the case of a request of retraction signed by the Editorial board for breaches of the professional ethical codes a retraction note titled "Retraction: [article title]" signed by the editorial board is published in the paginated part of a subsequent issue of the journal and listed in the contents list. In the electronic version, a link is made to the original article and to the duplicate article.
The online article is preceded by a screen containing the retraction note. It is to this screen that the link resolves; the reader can then proceed to both article itself.
The original article is retained unchanged save for a watermark on the .pdf indicating on each page that it is "retracted." The HTML version of the document is removed.

Article Removal: Legal limitations

In an extremely limited number of cases, it may be necessary to remove an article from the on-line database (e.g., GeoScienceWorld & Italian Geological Society portal). This will only occur where the article is clearly defamatory, or breaches others' legal rights, or where the article is, or the Italian Geological Society has go
od reason to expect it will be, the subject of a court order, or where the article, if acted upon, might pose a serious health risk. In these circumstances, while the
metadata (Title and Authors) will be retained, the text will be replaced with a screen indicating the article has been removed for legal reasons.