Irish Journal of Earth Sciences
Known to many geologists as ‘the purple journal’, the peer-reviewed Irish Journal of Earth Sciences (IJES) has been published by the Royal Irish Academy since 1984. It publishes original scholarship, discussion papers and reviews on any broad topic of Earth science interest, geology and palaeontology.
Subscription information
Institutional subscriptions available via Project MUSE. Please email JRNLCIRC@jh.edu
Individual 1 year subscription available here. Individual 3-year subscription available here.
Individual hardcopy issues can now also be purchased online under Subscriptions.
Instructions to Authors
Style Guidelines For Authors
Papers should be submitted via Manuscript Manager – submit your manuscript here.
After peer-review, proofs of accepted, copy-edited papers will be sent to the author; the author is expected to read them carefully and return them promptly.
Once final proofs are agreed, and prior to a paper’s publication, authors will be requested to complete and return a copyright form. The copyright form is available to download.
Manuscripts
Manuscripts must be typed on one side only of A4 paper, in 12pt font, double spaced, with wide margins. The text should be in a clear, concise style and written in English. Submission of the manuscript is taken to mean that the contents are original and that no similar paper will be submitted to another journal. All the pages of the submitted manuscript should be numbered consecutively and the approximate position of illustrations and tables clearly indicated in the text on the left-hand margin.
Papers will be accepted for publication by the Editors on the advice of at least one referee. They should conform to the following layout:
(a) Research papers should not exceed 15,000 words; discussion papers should not exceed one printed page (approximately 600 words).
(b) An informative brief title should be given, avoiding abbreviations. For retrieval and abstracting purposes the main subject matter covered by the paper should be indicated by the title.
(c) Name(s) of author(s) and professional address(es) should be given at the end of the paper, after the references.
(d) An abstract of not more than 200 words is required, which should be intelligible without reference to the main text.
(e) In the main text, use three or fewer levels of subheading. Metric measurements should be given wherever possible and abbreviated as 6mm, 4kg, 25km etc. Names of taxa should be in italics. Illustrations and tables should be referred to as in the following examples: Fig. 7, (Fig. 7), Figs 7 and 8, (Figs 7, 8), Table 2, (Table 2). Footnotes will not be accepted.
(f) References should conform exactly with the examples given below. Journal titles should be given in full. Titles of books should also be given in full, together with the edition, place of publication and publisher.
(g) Tables should be on separate pages and each should have a brief title.
(h) Captions of illustrations must be typed on a separate page. The journal does not print plates; all halftones will be printed in their proper place in the text. Consequently, all illustrations should be termed figures in the text and numbered consecutively.
Original Illustrations
Once a paper is accepted, high resolution (min. 300dpi for colour images and halftones; 600dpi for line-drawings) jpeg or tiff files of any related illustrations should be submitted to the Publications Office. The maximum size for illustrations is 21cm by 14cm. It is recommended that they be constructed either for the entire width of the type area (14cm) or for a column width (7.5cm). Large folding figures and coloured maps are subject to rigorous scrutiny and will be accepted only in special cases or when publication is assisted by a subvention. All illustrations should bear the author’s name and figure number. Do not attach captions to the illustrations.
References
References should conform to the following style:
Crow, M.J. and Max, M.D. 1976 The Kinrovar Schist. Scientific Proceedings of the Royal Dublin Society 5 (A), 429–41.
Harris, A.L., Holland, C.H. and Leake, B.E. (eds) 1979 The Caledonides of the British Isles: reviewed. Geological Society Special Publication No. 8. London.
Raup, D.M. and Stanley, S.M. 1971 Principles of paleontology. San Francisco. Freeman.
Williams, A. 1969 Ordovician faunal provinces with reference to brachiopod distribution. In A. Wood (ed.), The Pre-Cambrian and Lower Palaeozoic rocks of Wales, 117–54. Cardiff. University of Wales Press.
These should be referred to in the text as follows: ‘Crow and Max (1976) stated…’ . ‘The folds in this area (Crow and Max 1976) are…’ .
More detailed style instructions can be found here.
Publication ethics
Authors submitting papers to an Academy journal should ensure that
- they adhere to all research ethics guidelines of their discipline, particularly where human or animal subjects are involved
- they contact the Editor to identify and correct any material errors upon discovery, whether prior or subsequent to publication of their work
- authorship of the paper is accurately represented, including ensuring that all individuals credited as authors participated in the actual authorship of the work, and that all who participated are credited and have given consent for publication
Open Access
The Royal Irish Academy is committed to the dissemination of scholarship. To that end, we endorse the principles of Open Access and offer various routes to publishing OA scholarship in our journals. For more information, visit Open access publishing with the Royal Irish Academy.
ORCID Number
When submitting your paper to one of the Academy’s journals, please include your ORCID number. An ORCID Number (Open Researcher and Contributor Identification Number) is a non-proprietary alphanumeric code used to uniquely identify scientific and other academic authors and contributors. It is used to address the issues that a particular author’s contributions to the scientific literature or publications in the humanities can be hard to recognise based solely on names, especially as inconsistent spelling and different writing systems can hinder this further. It provides a persistent identity for humans, similar to that created for content-related entities on digital networks by DOIs. An ORCID Number is a way of ensuring that all of your research is linked identifiably to you.
If you do not have an ORCID number, registration for an ORCID number is a quick and easy process, and can be completed here: https://orcid.org/signin. We are also happy to answer any questions you have regarding this, or to give you support you in registering for one should you need it.
Funder mandates
The Royal Irish Academy will help authors meet your funders’ mandates on access and licensing. Contact the Publications Office to discuss requirements once an article has been accepted.
Data Protection
When submitting to one of our journals you agree for the Royal Irish Academy Publications department to store and use your data. For more information on how your data is used see our Privacy and Data Protection policies, and the Publications Transparency Statement.