About the Journal

The Italian Journal of Geosciences (Bollettino della Società Geologica Italiana e del Servizio Geologico d'Italia) is the official journal of the Italian Geological Society. It is published every four months in February, June and October. It is included in the Journal of Citation Report issued by the Institute of Scientific Information (Thomson ISI database) since 2004. It is indexed by Science Citation Index-Expanded (SCIE), Web of Science, Current Contents/Physical, Chemical & Earth Sciences (CC/PC&ES).

The Italian Journal of Geosciences (born from the merging of the Bollettino della Società Geologica Italiana and the Bollettino del Servizio Geologico d'Italia) provides an international outlet for the publication of high-quality original research contributions in the broad field of the geosciences.

It publishes research papers, special short papers, review papers, discussion-and-replies for their rapid distribution to the international geosciences community.

The journal is firstly intended to call attention to the Italian territory and the adjacent areas for the exceptional role they play in the understanding of geological processes, in the development of modern geology and the Earth sciences in general.

The main focus of the journal is on the geology of Italy and the surrounding sedimentary basins and landmasses, and on their relationships with the Mediterranean geology and geodynamics. Nevertheless, manuscripts on process-oriented and regional studies concerning any other area of the World are also considered for publication.

Papers on structural geology, stratigraphy, sedimentology, basin analysis, paleontology, ecosystems, paleoceanography, paleoclimatology, planetary sciences, geomorphology, volcanology, mineralogy, geochemistry, petrology, geophysics, geodynamics, hydrogeology, geohazards, marine and engineering geology, modelling of geological process, history of geology, the conservation of the geological heritage, and all related applied sciences are welcome.

Original Research Papers are published free of charge up to 14 printed pages* (including tables and figures; see below for details on extra pages). Authors are encouraged to emphasize data presentation in their manuscripts. Large data files, tables, and plates will be stored as digital supplementary material accessible via the internet. The former Bollettino della Società Geologica Italiana relies on a long established tradition in publishing colour geological maps. We intend to keep promoting this tradition by encouraging authors to submit their best geological maps, and/or maps derived from interpretation of aerial photographs or satellite images, as a complement to Original Research Papers. Special Short Papers must be limited within four printed pages* (all included). They need to be concise and focused scientific reports on limited data sets.

Review Papers can be submitted spontaneously or be solicited by the journal editors. Their length will be defined case-by-case.

Discussion-and-Reply Papers must be limited within three printed pages* (all included). Discussions will be submitted following the standard procedure. The editors will review the submission and if accepted they will forward it to the addressed authors for reply. Discussion and replies are published jointly.
* A full-text printed page of the journal typically contains 7.000 characters including blank spaces, each exceeding page will be charged 60 (+VAT) euros.

Reproduction of colour figures is free of charge both in the printed and on-line version. The costs for printing large attachments (maps, seismic profiles) must be covered by the authors and will be determined on a case-by-case basis. Publication of large attachments as digital supplementary material is free of charge, provided that the author submit the final digital file to the editorial manager.

Copyright: the authors will transfer copyright of their work to the Journal after final acceptance of the manuscript for publication. Any reproduction (full or in part) of material published elsewhere must be declared in the text (for example in the figure caption of an illustration). In addition, the authors of a submitted manuscript must obtain permission of reproduction from other publishers. Copy of such permission must be submitted to the Editorial Manager at or before the time of copyright transfer.

"The Italian Journal of Geosciences" receives more papers than we are able to publish and not all papers will be sent out for review. The Editors decide whether a submitted paper matches the journal's scope and aims, and will return manuscripts that are marginal to the main focus of the journal, lack sufficient impact and originality, and/or are inappropriately written and of poor quality.

Gold and Green Open Access

Since 1 January 2018, the Italian Journal of Geosciences 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.

The Italian Geological Society (SGI) has also signed an agreement with GeoScienceWorld (GSW) for the dissemination of IJG research in open access through their web portal (https://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/).

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 € 1000.00. A reduced fee (€ 500.00) 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.