About the Journal

Focus and Scope

Geologica Acta welcomes

  • Relevant conceptual developments in any area of the Earth and Environmental Sciences.
  • Studies presenting regional synthesis.
  • Thematic issues or monographic volumes.
  • Short papers reflecting interesting results or works in progress.
  • Reviews that summarise the research carried out on the subject.
  • Geologica Acta aims to stimulate rapid diffusion of results and efficient exchange of ideas between the widespread communities of Earth Science researchers.

Geologica Acta publication advantages

  • Paper length according to interest and need.
  • Quick publication; six months for express papers, 12 months for full length papers.
  • Attractive format and high quality printing no page charges.
  • Open access journal with no publication fee.


Geologica Acta diffusion

  • World wide diffusion in electronic format.
  • Free full-text availability online.
  • Alerting of the publication to interested researchers included in our data base.

Journal Policies

Open Access

Geologica Acta is an Open Access journal. It allows free access to and distribution of published and forthcoming articles, making research and science available for everyone and providing authors with worldwide rapid difussion.

Open Journal System

Geologica Acta works with the Open Journal System, a journal management and publishing system developed by the Public Knowledge Project. Manuscript submission and peer review process proceeds totally online.

Publishin in Geologica Acta by the Open Journal System provides the author a Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International Creative Commons-UB copyright, as well as a complete assistance at every stage of the publishing process. 

Geologica Acta preservation services are PKP Preservation Network (PN), LOCKSS and CLOCKSS.

Declaration of publishing ethics and best practices for scientific journals

We promote the open access publication of digital journals and endeavours to guarantee quality and conscientiousness in the transfer of scientific knowledge. We are committed to ensuring that the articles it publishes and the publishing process itself observe the Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) (1). It is therefore essential that all of the stakeholders in this process—journal editors, reviewers, technical editors and authors—know and act according to the Code.

Journal editors should:

ensure that the decision to publish is not dependent on the author’s race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, ethnic origin, country of origin, citizenship or political persuasion;

publish regular updates on the responsibilities of authors, submission requirements, the arbitration system used to select the articles and the evaluation criteria to be applied by reviewers;

publish corrections, clarifications, retractions and apologies when needed and not make use of any article received for specific research assignments without the author’s consent; 

guarantee confidentiality during the review process, meaning (a) the anonymity of reviewers and the confidentiality of the content of the articles, the reports submitted by reviewers and any other type of correspondence with or between the editorial, consultant and scientific committees and (b) confidentiality in the correspondence between the author and the journal committees or reviewers when the author wishes to clarify, change or complain about some aspect of the article;

make certain that the integrity of articles already published is respected; 

act swiftly to eliminate from the journal or refuse to publish any article that has been found to plagiarise information from other sources. We check all submitted manuscripts using the URKUND plagiarism tool.

 

Authors should:

understand that they are responsible for all submitted content; 

notify the journal editors of any errors in their published articles so that the appropriate corrections can be made; 

guarantee that the article and associated materials are original and do not infringe on the rights of third-party authors and, when there are co-authors, guarantee that the consent of all the authors is obtained before the article goes to press. Reviewers and technical editors should apply revisions that are objective, informed, critical, constructive and unbiased, where acceptance or rejection is based only on the work’s relevance, originality, interest to the public in question and compliance with the style and content regulations in the evaluation criteria;

meet deadlines when this is possible and promptly inform the journal editor when it is not; 

avoid sharing, spreading or reproducing any information from articles still under review without permission from the corresponding journal editors or authors.

(1) http://publicationethics.org/files/Code_of_conduct_for_journal_editors_0.pd

 

Privacy Statement

The data collected from registered and non-registered users of this journal falls within the scope of the standard functioning of peer-reviewed journals. It includes information that makes communication possible for the editorial process; it is used to inform readers about the authorship and editing of content; it enables collecting aggregated data on readership behaviors, as well as tracking geopolitical and social elements of scholarly communication.

This journal’s editorial team uses this data to guide its work in publishing and improving this journal. Data that will assist in developing this publishing platform may be shared with its developer Public Knowledge Project (PKP) in an anonymized and aggregated form, with appropriate exceptions such as article metrics. The data will not be sold by this journal or PKP nor will it be used for purposes other than those stated here. The authors published in this journal are responsible for the human subject data that figures in the research reported here.

Those involved in editing this journal seek to be compliant with industry standards for data privacy, including the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) provision for “data subject rights”, which include (a) breach notification; (b) right of access; (c) the right to be forgotten; (d) data portability; and (e) privacy by design. The GDPR also allows for the recognition of “the public interest in the availability of the data,” which has a particular saliency for those involved in maintaining, with the greatest integrity possible, the public record of scholarly publishing.

 

Journal History

 

Acta Geologica Hispanica (1966-2002). The predecessor of Geologica Acta

Acta Geologica Hispanica was established in 1966 from a joint partnership between the Universitat de Barcelona (UB) and the Spanish Research Council (CSIC) with the initiative of Professor L. Solé Sabarís. The objective of the magazine was to provide Spanish geologists with a fast and efficient way of disseminating their research work.

In addition, it was an element of scientific exchange with other institutions to maintain the quality of the bibliographic collection of the researchers of the Faculty of Geology (UB) and the Institute of Earth Sciences "Jaume Almera" (ICTJA-CSIC). The publication of magazines in the field (not yet dominated by the commercial edition) was the means of obtaining regular specialized publications; in addition to giving prestige to the publishing centers.

The National Institute of Geology, under the tutelage of ICTJA (CSIC), was responsible for the edition of the volumes at a time when the search was limited enough in terms of the scarcity of materials and human resources (1977-1981). Since 1981, the funding and publishing of Acta Geologica Hispanica become joint ICTJA and the Faculty of Geology (actually Faculty of Earth Sciences) of the UB. The magazine gained a space within the Spanish field because it allowed the publication of a large number of works from a wide variety of disciplines in Earth Sciences.

The emergence and massive reproduction of international commercial scientific journals that offered good editing quality, a fast publication with prestigious scientific committees and high-quality articles (from peer reviewing) led to the asphyxiation of many institutional journals, especially those that were not published in English. This fact, together with the change in the evaluation of the researchers (the state established as evaluation criteria only the publications included in the Science Citation Index and the Journal Citation Reports) conformed the decline Acta Geologica Hispanica.

Even so, some strategies were developed to promote the magazine: in the 90’s, all articles included an extensive summary in English (the role of regional contributions in geological sciences was important, although most of the works were not they were in English), they made changes of format and the number of published works was increased. It was also the beginning of edition of thematic numbers, works focused on a specific region, introducing the figure of the invited scientific editor, which gives the quality of volume.

The field of study expanded progressively, from regional research articles to international ones, covering a series of multidisciplinary fields of Earth Sciences. The set of all the events called led to the evolutionary process that fostered the creation of a totally renewed magazine: Geologica Acta

 

Geologica Acta (2003-actually)

Geologica Acta was born in 2003 as a result of the expansion of a regional magazine (Acta Geologia Hispanica) towards a broad international scope, with the intention of being a modern and effective tool for the rapid dissemination of research in Earth Sciences. The objective was, then, to increase the potential and become an impact magazine, located at Science Citation Index, as well as consolidating the magazine in an international forum for the dissemination of research in Earth Sciences.

Geologica Acta is an open-access and non-profit international scientific journal (the dissemination of information is made without compensation, by authors or readers). This peer reviewing magazine started publishing an annual volume divided into four quarterly original search quotes including articles, short notes and book reviews related to the world of Earth Sciences.

In 2005 the articles begin to publish online on on www.geologica-acta.com web site, publishing in In Press format all the articles until the printing of quarterly volumes. In addition, digitalization of all the previous articles was carried out, including those published in the Acta Geologica Hispanica. In 2016 online edition is also included. Also in 2016 was the 50th aniversary of the Journal.

Geologica Acta is currently funded and edited by the Universitat de Barcelona (UB) and the Institute of Earth Sciences “Jaume Almera” (ICTJA-CSIC). The Institut d'Avaluació Ambiental i Recerca de l'Aigua (IDAEA-CSIC) and the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) are also publishers.

The scientific team of Geologica Acta is formed by five academic editors of the aforementioned institutions that work in the hands of Scientific Publishers of research centers and universities around the world. In addition, it also has a Scientific Advisory Board of some thirty professionals from all fields of Earth Sciences and an Editorial Team.

The journal is indexed and summarized in: Science Citation Index Expanded, Georef, Pascal, Biosis Previews, Latindex, Scopus, Geological Abstracts, Geographical Abstracts, Chemical Abstracts, REDIB, ICYT and Spanish Redalyc, SJR and Ibero-American Journal Rankings in the 5th place. The quality profile of Geologica Acta has been reaffirmed since 2007 when it was included in the Geology category of the Journal Citation Reports, is the first scientific journal of the state to be indexed. Since then, the magazine has changed position between the first and second quartiles of the Journal of Impact Factor and its publications area has expanded substantially, including studies in more than 40 countries in the last 5 years.

For 15 years (2003-2018) the journal was published, free of charge, both in printed and online versions (diamond open access). From Volume 17 (2019) publication has only been online, publishing continuously in an annual volume (apart from special numbers grouped by themes).