Order of Intermittent Rock Fractured Surfaces

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Title: Order of intermittent rock fractured surfaces

Authors: Saeed Aligholi et al.  

In this manuscript, intermittency of rough rock fractured surfaces has been discussed according to chaos theory. Ultimately, a framework that can be used to quantify and model the roughness of fractured surfaces as a prerequisite factor was established.

The paper is original and fits the scope of the SUSTAINABILITY journal.

However, I would like the authors to address major review comments as follow:

1-     What was the procedure for selecting the 4 different rock types?   

2-     The details of each sample are not clear. These details are very important for this study.

3-     the introduction section is short and provide no enough information. I suggest author modify the introduction part and add more details and references.

4-     Compared to the published papers in this subject, what is the most attracting difference and innovation of this study? Please show the reviewer and emphasize it in the manuscript.

5-     Supportive references must be used after each conclusion made by author.

6-     A serious conclusion section should be added, and I miss information on how the study could be helpful in various fields.

7-     It is recommend increasing the number of samples to produce more results.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

1.  Figure 1. What do the colors in the figure represent? The Legend is still needed here.

2.  Please give the References for Formula One.

3.  I think Figure 2 should be placed after the text mentioned at section 3.2.

4.  The authors introduce relevant parameters to quantify the intermittency of structural surface roughness, but only show that the intermittency of FPZ roughness of rock materials can be related to two parameters: the critical moment order  and the power law  . Establish the relationship model between the intermittent exponent  and the critical moment order  and the power laws  is needed.

5.  More discussions should be presented to explain the main point of the article. Especially for Figure 4.

6. Line 150. What do you mean this can lead to predict seismic or flood events in a short time with higher accuracy?

7. what is intermittent exponent ?

8. How to define the intermittency of rock surface? please specify and give more References.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

This paper established a disorder analysis method for quantifying and modeling the roughness of rock fractured surfaces at intermediate length scales by introducing intermittency parameters, which has great innovation, but the paper has the following problems:

1. Further explain the engineering value and practical significance of the study.

2. In Fig.2. Lines are not easy to distinguish.

3. In Fig.3. Figure (a) and Figure (b), (c) have inconsistent clarity，Figure (b), (c) is more blurry.

In summary, please modify the paper according to the above problems.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

This is an interesting paper and the results can potentially be impactful. However, due to its short length, it is very difficult to follow the paper. This is particularly the case for section 3.2 wherein a variety of terms are used without proper introduction. The reviewer recommends the acceptance of the paper after the authors address the comments below (mostly related to proving equations and explanation of terms discussed):

1.     Line 46, xi_2 is used before its formal introduction and discussion on page 3.

2.     In the discussions from line 74 to 86 and related to figure 2, should one consider a range (rather than a discrete value) of delta r to calculate H(q)? If so, does it imply that for all delta_r’s within that range the same H(q) is calculated or at least the values are very close? The logic behind using ever increasing delta r ranges in figure 2 is not explained.

3.     What is the significance of the point at which the lines coincide in figure 2 (called q_c)? Is it related to xi_2 (lines 80 and 81) and if so how? What is the implication of the lines diverging again after q_c in figure 2c (if understood correctly)? The discussion of q_c is not clear in lines 108-9.

4.     Line 96: What is the power lambda? Please provide the formulas related to this discussion.

5.     Figure 3: It’s difficult to follow this figure and the discussion around it. How is figure 3a used? How is delta r_max computed?

6.     Table 1: How are these terms (especially xi_2, lambda, and psi) computed say from figure 2 and/or 3? What is psi? Please provide formulas and explain these terms.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 4 Report

The authors have barely made any changes in the manuscript and the response is full of typos and grammatical errors. However, the reviewer accepts the current version, if this is how they believe the earlier concerns should be addresses.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you so much for taking time to review our manuscript. However, we could not find any typos or grammatical mistakes in our responses to your previous comments.