Instructions for authors

General

Bulletin of the Geological Society of Finland (BGSF) publishes research articles and short communications in all branches of geosciences. Contributions from outside Finland are welcome, provided that they contain material relevant to Finnish geology or are of general interest.

Manuscripts, conforming to the instructions below, should be sent by e-mail to Editor-in-Chief.  Traditional research articles should be concise, generally no more than 20 printed pages. Short communications are independent write ups representing significant research and should not contain more than about 3000 words and 2–3 figures or tables.

Send the manuscript text, references, figure captions and tables as individual text files or compiled into a single text file (.DOC or .RTF). Figures should be compiled into one PDF file. The first submission should include a version (max. 15 MB) where all the figures (low-res) and tables are at place (embedded in text) and the list of references follows the text.

Authors should carefully study the latest issue of BGSF and format the crucial components of the manuscript (e.g., affiliations, title numbering) accordingly. The manuscript should contain line numbers. The approximate position for insertion of each table and figure should be indicated in the manuscript text file. All manuscripts submitted to BGSF are subject to peer review by at least two referees and at least one of the editors. Short communications are also passed through the peer review process. Authors are requested to submit names, addresses, and e-mail addresses of four appropriate reviewers with their cover letter.

Submission and article processing are free of charge to the authors. Authors assign copyright to the Geological Society of Finland effective when the article is accepted for publication in this journal.

BGSF has adopted the peer-review practices as recommended by the Federation of Finnish Learned Societies.

Language

Articles must be written clearly and concisely in English (British or American consistently).

Abstract and keywords

Articles must be preceded by a short ca. 200 word abstract containing the content and conclusions of the paper in a capsule form. Abstracts for short communications can be shorter than this. Keywords (5–10) should follow the abstract.

References

In the first submission, the authors are free to present their reference list as they wish (as long as it is clear). When submitting a revised manuscript, carefully study the latest issue of BGSF for the referring practice. A Digital Object Identifier (DOI) should be included and written as "https://doi.org/10..." following every reference for which it exists. Papers in preparation or in manuscript cannot be cited.

Figures

BGSF is printed in full colour throughout and the authors are encouraged to use colour in their figures when useful. Illustrations will be sized to fit within the width of a column (74 mm) or a page (153 mm): a page is 220 mm high. Label each figure with the author's name and figure number (i.e. Surname Fig 1.tif). Use clear, sans serif typeface such as Helvetica or Arial. After reduction, no text should be smaller than 1 mm. The largest lettering should not be more than three times the size of the smallest lettering. Place a white background behind lettering that crosses a dark or textured area in a figure. If possible, use patterns instead of dot fill patterns. Dot fills must be between 20% and 70% black. Use clean black lines, no finer than 1 point. On maps, please include latitude and longitude, a scale in kilometers, and label all bodies referring to water in an italic font; all other geographic features in roman font.

Once your paper is accepted we ask you to send us high-quality electronic files (minimum 300 dpi resolution). Figures generated using drawing programs should be sent in PDF, EPS (text vectorised), or high resolution TIF format. Excel charts can also be used. Avoid using JPG format for line drawings. Photographs generated by digital cameras should be sent in TIF or JPG format and preferably 600 dpi to allow scaling.

Tables

Number the tables in the order in which they are cited in the paper and label the files in an analogous manner to that of the figures (i.e. Surname Table 1.DOC). Preferred file formats include Excel (.XLS) or MSWord (.DOC) generated with table operator. Align all columns on the decimal. Do not leave blank spaces in analytical tables; these should be marked, e.g., by n.a. (not analysed) or b.d.l. (below detection limit).

Electronic Appendices

We encourage authors to include large datasets as Electronic Appendices. These should be sent as Excel files (.XLS) labeled in the order they appear in the text (e.g., Surname Electronic Appendix A.xls). Any relevant reference data (e.g., standard runs, precision and accuracy) should be included in the file. In addition to describing them in the manuscript, analytical methods and procedures relevant to the data should also be included in the file. We will add the publication information (i.e. authors, title, issue) into the Appendix in case of publication.