Geological Bulletin of China, founded in 1982, is a monthly comprehensive academic journal of geology which is supervised and sponsored by China Geological Survey (CGS). It aims to promote the innovative development of geological survey and geological science and technology, to serve the national economic construction and social public service, and to comprehensively display and timely report the new progress, new achievements, new discoveries and new methods in the new field of national geological survey.

Geological Bulletin of China is dedicated to the best practices on ethical matters, errors, and retractions. The prevention of publication malpractice is one of the important responsibilities of the Editorial Board. Any kind of unethical behavior is not acceptable by the journal and the Editorial Board does not tolerate plagiarism in any form. Authors submitting articles to Geological Bulletin of China need to affirm that the manuscript content is original and sign a Copyright Agreement with the editorial office.

1. Duties of Authors

a) Publication guidelines: Authors must follow the submission guidelines of the journal.

b) Original Work: Authors must ensure that they have written entirely original work. Authors must certify that the manuscript has not previously been published elsewhere.

c)Multiple Submissions: Authors must certify that the manuscript is not currently being considered for publication elsewhere.

d) Peer Review Process: Authors must participate in the peer review process.

e)  Authorship of the Paper: All authors mentioned in the paper must have significantly contributed to the research.

f) Data Access and Retention: Authors should provide raw data related to their manuscript for editorial review and must retain such data.

g) Authenticity of Data: Authors must identify all sources used in the creation of their manuscript. Authors must state that all data referred to in the paper is genuine.

h) Undisputed map: All authors must provide undisputed maps.

2. Duties of Editors

a) Publication Decisions: Based on the review report of the Editorial Review Board the editor has complete responsibility and authority to accept, reject or request modifications to the manuscript.

b) Review of Manuscripts: Manuscripts are initially evaluated by the editor for originality, making use of appropriate software to do so. Following desk review, the manuscript is subject to one-blind peer review, then to the Editorial Review Board which will make a recommendation to accept, reject, or modify the manuscript.

c) Fair Review: The editor must ensure that each manuscript submitted to Geolocial Bulletin of China is reviewed for its intellectual content without regard to sex, gender, race, religion, citizenship, etc. of the authors.

d) Confidentiality: The editor must ensure that information regarding manuscripts submitted by the authors is kept confidential.

e) Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest: The editor of this journal shall not use unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript for his/her own research without the written consent of the author.

f) Errata Information: The editor must publish errata pages or make corrections when needed.

g) Ethical Guidelines: The editor shall ensure that all research material they publish conforms to internationally ethical guidelines.

h) Proof of Misconduct: The editor should not reject papers based on suspicions; they should have proof of misconduct.

3. Peer Review Process

A. One-blind Peer Review Process

After initial review by editor and editor-in-chief, manuscripts with high quality and interesting scientific questions are sent out for peer review, usually to one reviewer. Authors are also encouraged to suggest preferred and non-preferred reviewers during the submission process. Manuscripts will not send to the reviewers who have the same institutional affiliation or relationships with the manuscripts’ authors. In addition, reviewers are encouraged to disclose any potential conflicts of interest before reviewing a manuscript.

B.  Duties of Reviewers

a) Confidentiality: Reviewers should keep all information regarding papers confidential and treat them as privileged information.

b) Acknowledgment of Sources: Reviewers must ensure that authors have acknowledged all sources of data used in the research.

c) Standards of Objectivity: Reviews should be conducted objectively, with no personal criticism of the author.

d) Supporting Argument: Reviewers should express their views clearly with supporting arguments.

e) Plagiarism, Fraud and Other Ethical Concerns: Reviewers should let the editor know if they suspect/find that a manuscript is a substantial copy of another work, citing the previous work in as much detail as possible.

f) Relevant Work: Reviewers should identify relevant published work that has not been cited by the authors.

g) Conflicts of Interest: Reviewers should not review manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, or institutions connected to the papers.

h) Promptness: In the event that a reviewer feels it is not possible for him/her to complete review of the manuscript within stipulated time then this information must be communicated to the editor so that the manuscript could be sent to another reviewer.

4. Withdrawal Notice

a) Once academic misconduct or legal restrictions are found in the papers, a withdrawal notice of the paper will be timely published in text of the latest issue of the journal and listed in the contents of the latest issue.

b) A notice of withdrawal consists of the original text clearly quoted and withdrawal reasons. Detailed evidence will be made public in the online edition of the journal.

c) The papers will be timely withdrawn from the website and database platform of the journal.