PAPER SUBMISSION

Guide for authors

Manuscripts must comprise original and unpublished material (except in the form of an abstract, proceeding, or short communication) that is not under consideration for publication elsewhere. Publication of the manuscript must be approved by all authors and, tacitly or explicitly, by the responsible authorities where the work was carried out. If accepted for publication, the article must not be published elsewhere, including electronically, in the same form, in English or any other language, without the consent of the copyright-holder.

All published contributions are in English. Both British and North American English are acceptable but not a mixture of these. The reviewers and editors will correct minor problems with the English and grammar of non-native speakers, but authors whose native language is not English are advised to have their manuscripts checked by a fluent English-speaker before submission to avoid problems with ambiguity in the text.

Submission procedure

Manuscripts should be submitted either via our website or as e-mail attachments sent to the Chief Editor, Dr Lubomir Metodiev (Geological Institute, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Acad. G. Bonchev Str., Bl. 24, 1113 Sofia, Bulgaria; e-mail: lubo@geology.bas.bg; metodievls@yahoo.co.uk). Be cautious about possible e-mail size limitations if you choose the latter option. For initial submission, manuscripts must be sent as a single PDF file with the text, figure and table captions, and all figures and tables (each figure/table on a separate page). The file name should comprise your surname (or the first author’s surname followed by ‘et al.’ in the case of more than one author) and date of submission. Remember that, at revision, you must provide us with an editable MS-Word file of the entire article, and each figure and/or table must be sent as a separate file in acceptable by our journal file formats (see Preparation of manuscripts below).

Authors must consider very carefully the list and order of authors before submitting their manuscript and provide the definitive list of authors at the time of the original submission, with designated corresponding author, who will be the contact person throughout the reviewing and publishing processes.

Reviewing of publication

All manuscripts submitted to Geologica Balcanica will be peer-reviewed by at least two referees. The final decision concerning acceptance or rejection of a paper will be made by the Editorial Board, usually in consultation with the members of the Editorial Advisory Board. Authors may provide the contact details (including e-mail addresses) of four potential reviewers for their paper.

Manuscript processing

Proof copy, in PDF format, will be sent by e-mail to the corresponding author. It should be corrected and returned within five days of receipt. Major changes are not acceptable at the proof stage. Proofreading is solely the authors’ responsibility. If proofs are not returned in time, the Editorial Office reserves the right to make corrections to the text in accordance with the manuscript.

Reprints

Soon after their finalisation, PDFs of the articles are freely available online on the Journal Website. Reprints are payable and will be made upon author’s personal request or on their behalf (e.g., research funder or institution).

Preparation of manuscripts

Manuscripts should be typed in Times New Roman (font size: 12 pt), double-spaced, on A4 paper size with 2.5 cm wide margins. The overall size of manuscripts should not exceed 80 such pages, including tables and figures. All pages should be numbered serially.

• Title. Brief and as specific and informative as possible. Please avoid abbreviations.
• Name(s) of the author(s) and affiliations. Please clearly indicate the given name(s) and surname(s) of each author, without abbreviations, and present the authors’ affiliation addresses (department, institution, and city, with postal code and country). All affiliations must be indicated with superscript numerals (i.e., ¹, ², etc.) immediately after the author’s name and in front of the appropriate address. The author to whom required revisions and proofs are to be addressed (i.e., the corresponding author) should be indicated, along with their e-mail address.
• Abstract. Should not exceed 250 words for Research Papers and 150 words for Short Notes. The abstract should state briefly the purpose of the research and the principal results and major conclusions. Abbreviations and reference citations should be avoided.
• Keywords. Up to six keywords must be included.
• Main text. For research articles, it must be structured into clearly defined sections as Introduction, Geological setting, Methodology, Results, Discussion, and Conclusion(s). Use no more than three levels of headings: level 1 – INTRODUCTION (bold, upper case); level 2 – Stratigraphy (bold, sentence case); level 3 – Svoge Formation (bold, italic, sentence case). Headings should not be preceded by numerals or letters.
• Acknowledgements. Should be arranged in a separate section at the end of the article, before the references. Please do not include the acknowledgements on the title page, as a footnote to the title, or otherwise. The acknowledgements should contain those individuals and institutions that provided help during your work (e.g., providing language help, figures/illustrations help, proof-reading the article, supporting the research, etc.). Please remember to include the reviewers in your acknowledgements for the review process is essential to the betterment of science, and it usually takes a day, or even more, of unpaid work to review a manuscript.
• Abbreviations. Should be defined at first mention and used consistently thereafter.
• Units of measurement. The International System of Units (SI) must be followed throughout, except for the ångström (Å).
• Appendices. Appendices are optional. Supplementary materials that support the submitted article are acceptable. They may include high-resolution images, maps, background datasets, and more. Please title all appendices (e.g., APPENDIX A. SAMPLE DESCRIPTIONS). If there are two or more appendices, designate each appendix with a capital Latin letter (e.g., APPENDIX A, APPENDIX B, etc.). Tables and figures in the appendices should be numbered separately from those in the main text (e.g., Fig. A1, Fig. B2, Table C1, etc.).
• Figure captions. Figure captions must be provided separate from the figures, at the end of the manuscript. Make captions precise and explain all symbols and abbreviations used.
• References. Double-spaced and following the journal style (see examples below). References of papers published in languages that do not employ the Latin script must be translated into English, with an indication of the original language and abstract language (if any) in parentheses, e.g., ‘(in Bulgarian, with English abstract)’. References in the text, figures, captions, tables, and appendices must be listed in the Reference section. Please do not cite papers that are in preparation, under review, or under revision. All citations in the text should refer to:

1. Single author: the author’s name (without initials, unless there is ambiguity) and year of publication. Examples: Zagorchev (1992) or (Zagorchev, 1992).
2. Two authors: both authors’ names and the year of publications. Examples: Watson and Harrison (1983) or (Watson and Harrison, 1983).
3. Three or more authors: use the surname of the first author followed by ‘et al.’ (typed in italics) in the text. Examples: Bonev et al. (2004) or (Bonev et al., 2004).
4. More than one reference from the same author(s) in the same year must be identified by the letters ‘a’, ‘b’, ‘c’, etc., placed after the year of publication.
5. Groups of references in the text should be listed first chronologically, and then alphabetically. Examples: Ivanov (1987a), Ivanov (1997a, b); “global environmental conditions are considered to have remained relatively stable (e.g., Jenkyns, 1988, 2010; Jones et al., 1994) although the late Toarcian […]”
6. For personal communications use ‘pers. comm.’ (upright typeface), with year where appropriate.
7. The reference list should be arranged alphabetically, and then further sorted chronologically. Names of periodicals should be spelt without abbreviations and typed in italics.

Journal articles and abstracts:

Zagorchev, I. 2001. Introduction to the geology of SW Bulgaria. Geologica Balcanica 31 (1–2), 3–52.

Schmidt, M.V., Thompson, A.B. 1996. Epidote in calc-alkaline magmas: An experimental study of stability,

Books and monographs:

Wilson, M. 1989. Igneous Petrogenesis. Kluwer, Dordrecht, 450 pp.

Blundell, D.J., Neubauer, F., von Quadt, A. (Eds). 1999. The timing and location of major ore deposits in an

Chapters of books:

Marchev, P., Singer, B. 2002. ⁴⁰Ar/³⁹Ar geochronology of magmatism and hydrothermal activity of the

Dissertations:

Georgiev, S. 2008. Sources and evolution of Late Cretaceous magmatism in the Eastern Srednogorie, Bulgaria:

• Figures. Figures should be designed to fit a single-column (80 × 240 mm) or a double-column (165 × 240 mm) width of a Journal page. You may indicate their preferred position in the text. Authors are required to supply high-resolution EPS, TIFF, CDR, or JPEG images. Always use a minimum of 600 dpi for line drawings and 600 (300) dpi for colour and halftone illustrations, respectively. It is advised to create high-resolution images at the very start of manuscript preparation. If necessary, these can easily be converted into low-resolution images for the initial manuscript submission. All illustrations are called ‘Figures’ and should be referred to as ‘Figure’ if at the start of a sentence, or as ‘Fig.’ otherwise. Figure parts (see Composite figures below) are referred to as ‘Fig. 1a’ or ‘(Fig. 1a)’. Illustrations should be numbered consecutively as they are cited in the text. Each figure should have a concise caption describing accurately what the figure depicts. Maps, field sketches, cross-sections, and photographs should include a metric scale bar. Regional maps should include latitude/longitude coordinates. Legends (if required) must be embedded in the figures. To add lettering, do not use font sizes less than 6 points (2 mm). Bulgarian geographic names should be transliterated in accordance with the decree No. 3/26-10-2006. Drawings must consist of lines not thinner than 0.5 point (0.175 mm) and a minimum resolution of 600 dpi. Graphics containing fonts must have the fonts embedded in the files. Avoid fine shadings and tones.
• Composite figures. Composite figures (plates) are also acceptable. They must have all details labelled on them. Each figure in the plate must have an identification label in, preferably, the lower right corner. The label should comprise a lower-case Latin letter typed in italics (a, b, c, etc.).
• Tables. Preferably, tables must fit a single- (80 × 240 mm) or a double-column (165 × 240 mm) width of a Journal page. They should be numbered consecutively and created with MS Word. All tables should include a brief title; columns should have an explanatory heading and, where appropriate, units of measurement. Minimum font size for all tables is 9 points. Make sure that all numbers in the same column have the same number of digits after the decimal point. Align all data to the right so that all decimal points are also aligned. Footnotes to tables should be typed below the table and indicated by superscript lower-case letters. Tables should be numbered using Arabic numerals and cited in the text as ‘Table 1’, ‘Table 2’, etc.
• Short Communications. Short Communications should not exceed 15 double-spaced pages, including tables and figures. The style of the main sections need not conform to that of full-length papers.