About Lithosphere
GOLD OPEN ACCESS • EXPANDED SCOPE • COMMUNITY-DRIVEN
Since January 2020, Lithosphere, a valued and established open access journal originally published by The Geological Society of America, has been published by GeoScienceWorld in alliance with a number of prestigious nonprofit societies. The open access journal has an expanded scope covering research in all areas of Earth, Planetary, and Environmental Sciences, providing a unique publishing choice for authors in the geoscience community. The participating societies include:
- American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
- The Geological Society of America (GSA)
- Geological Society of London (GSL)
- Mineralogical Society of America (MSA)
- SEPM Society for Sedimentary Geology (SEPM)
- Society of Exploration Geophysicists (SEG)
- Society of Economic Geologists (SEG)
Lithosphere is fully compliant with all existing funder requirements for open access (including Plan S/cOAlition S, all US federal funding agencies, European Commission/ERC and UKRI), and provides an option for authors needing to meet those requirements.
Article Processing Charges
As a Gold Open Access journal, Lithosphere is funded through author payments of Article Processing Charges (APCs). APCs support the conversion of a submitted manuscript into a final published article. The single APC covers staff and systems across a variety of departments including:
- The Editorial Screening team, who perform initial technical and ethical checks.
- The Editorial team, who help the journal's Academic Editors manage the review process.
- The Production team, who convert the manuscript to a professionally typeset article and well-structured XML.
- The Proofing team, who coordinate the proofing process through the Online Proofing System (OPS).
- The Editorial Quality Assurance team, who perform a final check to ensure that the manuscript and its review process adhere to the journal's guidelines and policies.
- Our marketing and communications teams, who ensure your article receives the attention it deserves.
- The technology team, who build and maintain our systems.
Member Discounts
As a community journal, Lithosphere is a collaboration between GeoScienceWorld and seven of its member societies. As a member benefit, all authors who are members of one of the following seven societies are eligible to receive a 10% discount on their APC:- American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
- The Geological Society of America (GSA)
- Geological Society of London (GSL)
- Mineralogical Society of America (MSA)
- SEPM Society for Sedimentary Geology
- Society of Exploration Geophysicists (SEG)
- Society of Economic Geologists (SEG)
Member discount requests must be made prior to manuscript final decision.
Requests for discounts must be emailed to lithosphere@technicaeditorial.com after a manuscript has been submitted and before final decision.
Discount requests should include the following information:
- Manuscript ID
- Society Name
- Membership Number
- Membership expiry date (valid through)
Discounts can not be awarded and applied until a manuscript is submitted to Lithosphere.
Waivers
To help support researchers in low-to-middle income countries, Lithosphere automatically provides full and partial waivers of article processing charges for manuscripts based on the corresponding author's listed affiliation. Authors do not need to request these waivers, they will be applied at submission.
- Corresponding authors based in countries in Research4Life’s Group A will receive a full (100%) waiver of APCs
- Corresponding authors based in countries in Research4Life’s Group B will receive a partial (50%) waiver of APCs
Please note that only one APC waiver can be applied to each submitted manuscript.
Reduction of APCs are also considered when certain criteria are met. Requests to apply for a reduction in APC should be made when submitting your manuscript by contacting lithosphere@technicaeditorial.com. Requests made during the review process or after acceptance will not be considered.
Indexing Services
Articles published in Lithosphere are included in:- DOAJ
- EBSCOhost
- GeoRef
- Geofacets
- Science Citation Index
- Scopus
Peer Review and Editorial Policies
All submitted articles are subject to assessment and peer review by the Editorial Board to ensure editorial appropriateness and technical correctness. In order for an article to be accepted for publication, the assigned Editor will first consider if the manuscript meets minimum editorial standards and fits within the scope of the journal. If an article is within scope, then the Editor will ideally solicit at least two external peer reviewers (whose identities will remain anonymous to the authors) to assess the article before confirming a decision to accept. Decisions to reject are at the discretion of the Editor.Part of the ethos of Lithosphere is for the peer review process to feel constructive and cooperative. Section Editors take editorial responsibility for their subject area and Associate Editors will run peer review based on the following criteria for publication:
- Scientifically rigorous and valid, with observations separated from interpretations, and conclusions supported by data
- A useful contribution, that tells us something new, and discussed in the context of existing literature
- Ethically sound, previously unpublished and meeting all applicable research integrity standards
- Reproducible with methods, analyses and statistics (as appropriate) detailed sufficiently to be followed
- Written in clear and concise English, so the study cannot be misunderstood
Lithosphere flyer
Please direct editorial questions to the Managing Editor at editorial@geoscienceworld.org.
