Vol. 80, No. 39, September 28, 1999, p. 453.
EDITORIAL
G3: An Interdisciplinary Electronic Journal of the Earth Sciences
Author
Charles Langmuir
Chair, G3 Executive Committee
Copyright 1999 American Geophysical Union
Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems (G-cubed) is a new electronic journal that has grown from a grass roots effort by a group of geochemists and geophysicists. The aim is to create a publication medium that reflects the needs of the community by providing a rapid and flexible method for publication of conventional papers as well as novel publication forms that take advantage of the electronic format. Universal access at low cost is also a prime objective. The journal is currently accepting submissions, and the first articles will appear in early December in time for a formal launch at the Fall AGU Meeting. The G3 Web site is at http://www.g-cubed.org/.
The timely dissemination of new geochemical and geophysical data and ideas is often impeded by the limitations of the conventional publication process. The need to publish large data sets, the need for color figures and animations to adequately represent data and their interpretation, the desirability of easy and convenient access to data, the desirability of multi-scalar and multi-dimensional representations, the possibility to link with and contribute to new databases, the need to provide incremental updates to existing models---all of these are impeded or prevented by conventional publication.
The traditional publication process has other disadvantages. It is expensive and it can be very slow. For most Earth scientists, the medium of scientific information, data creation, modeling, and communication inherently resides on computers. But publication involves transferring the information to paper, communicating by mail among editors, reviewers, authors, and publisher, and final dissemination by mail on paper as a journal issue. Those who wish to use the data in these journals must then struggle to get them back onto a computer.
Furthermore, there is a wide variety of information and metadata of great utility to the scientific community (e.g., data sets, computer code, models, and analytical methods) that cannot be included in conventional publications and that requires private communication among individuals. These materials represent a significant effort by scientists, and yet there is no convenient method of publication so that they can be used more widely and adequately acknowledged. Personal Web pages are not citable or adequately indexed and inevitably are temporary and unarchived. In addition, there is the need for "living" publications, such as the most updated versions of models of seismic structure or chemical composition of the Earth. This requires interactive links among publications with different dates, and publication of incremental updates.
G3 is designed to address this diversity of problems and opportunities. Because the most exciting advances in Earth science are often at the interfaces between fields or are made through interdisciplinary approaches to studying the Earth system, the new journal has a scope that encompasses multiple disciplines and encourages interdisciplinary studies. The journal publishes scientific contributions investigating the Earth as a dynamic chemical and physical system on all time scales. The scope encompasses relevant observational, experimental, and theoretical investigations of the solid Earth, hydrosphere, atmosphere, and biosphere that pertain to understanding the Earth as a system.
G3 has diverse publication categories in order to take full advantage of the nature of the electronic publication medium, without sacrificing the quality that the community expects to find in a top-rated journal. There are six categories of publication. The first three are recognizable from other journals. The second three are novel and are intended to provide for the specific needs of Earth scientists that are possible in an electronic format and more difficult in traditional paper publication.
Articles are recent, previously unpublished results of research that meet the most stringent standards of quality and originality and are of interest to a broad research community.
Letters are short papers that undergo a more rapid review and publication. Criteria for the acceptance of letters will include extraordinary timeliness and originality.
Review Articles are longer papers that are timely and appropriate in the context of recent developments in the fields covered by the journal. Prospective authors of Review Articles should discuss their plans with one of the three Editors prior to writing such an article for submission to G3.
Technical Briefs report on the development of new analytical methods and technical advances including computer models and methods, databases, and geochemical analytical techniques.
Data Briefs consist of previously unpublished data with appropriate documentation accompanied by a minimum of interpretation and discussion.
The Characterizations section of the journal is reserved for models of the chemistry or physics of the Earth, accompanied by the minimum documentation required to reproduce the calculations. Examples include models of mantle rheology and predicted geoid and post-glacial rebound rates; seismic models of elastic Earth structure; models of melt generation and migration, or models of geochemical components, reservoirs, and fluxes. Revisions and updates of previously published models would also be published in this category.
In addition to these categories for submitted articles, G3 will publish peer-reviewed comments on published papers and their replies, editorials, and other scientific commentaries. All submissions and reviews are handled electronically in an effort to shorten the time from submission to publication.
All published material in G3 will be peer-reviewed to high standards. Archiving of the publications is subject to the same guarantee as all AGU journals. In addition to HTML, the Web site will provide PDF versions of all publications, which will allow users to print locally high quality copies, in color if desired, for their reprint files and to read away from the computer screen.
To accomplish this vision of a new journal, an international group of geochemists and geophysicists (see box), with start-up funding from UC San Diego, Harvard University, and the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, proposed this new journal G3 to AGU and the Geochemical Society. The governing bodies of both societies assented, and G3 will be copublished by AGU and the Geochemical Society and archived by AGU.
As an author, do you desire very rapid publication, with free color figures, the ability to publish animations and large data sets and to provide links of all kinds to other publications and databases, the ability to publish technical and data briefs and model updates, and very broad distribution? As a reader, do you desire a high quality of peer review, inexpensive access, ability to download data, color reprints, access to the novel publication forms and links to databases and related publications? G3 is a community effort to try to accomplish these objectives. Submit today!
G3 will initially be free of page charges and freely accessible over the Internet to libraries and individual users. When fees are introduced, they will be as low as possible to help relieve the increasing costs of publications. Look for more information now at http://www.g-cubed.org/.
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