Insights from the P Wave Travel Time Tomography in the Upper Mantle Beneath the Central Philippines

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Review for Shi et al. “Insights from the P wave travel time tomography in upper mantle beneath the central Philippine” submitted to Remote Sensing.

This is an interesting manuscript on the deep structure of the Philippine subduction zone. It is suitable for a wide audience. It should be published after minor revisions. In my review, I focused on the geodynamic implications of the study. This is an important topic and could be a bit more extended.

1. Line 35: Please modify to: “The Philippines are located in the…”

2. Line 77 - 78: Please modify to: “…has significant implication…”

3. Line 131: Please modify to: “The method described above…”

4. Line 134 – 135: Please modify to: “…correction was applied or not, most values…”

5. Line 139: Please modify to: “…negative values on the mean…”

6. Line 140: Please modify to: “…mainly located in the…”

7. Line 140 – 141: Please modify to: “This phenomenon is probably due to slab induced mantle upwelling”.

8. Line 192 – 193: Please modify to: “…an optimal grid was utilized to parameterize the initial…”

9. Line 193: Please modify to: “After several inversion….”

10. Line 232: Please modify to: “…near-vertical subduction angle…”

11. Line 230 - 239: The change in subduction angle is a very interesting observation and could be a key point of this study. A decrease of the subduction angle along an island-arc was also e.g., observed in Central America (Peacock et al., 2005; Brandes & Winsemann, 2018). This is important as the subduction angle has an impact on the stress field of the island-arc and the earthquake distribution. You should integrate this in the discussion and you can use the following literature:

Peacock et al. (2005) Thermal structure of the Costa Rica – Nicaragua subduction zone. Physics of the Earth and Planetary Interiors. 149, 187-200

Brandes & Winsemann (2018) From incipient island arc to doubly vergent orogen: a review of geodynamic models and sedimentary basin-fills of southern Central America. Island Arc, 27, doi.: 10.1111/iar.12255

12. Line 252: Please modify to: “It is derived…”

13. Line 254: What you you mean with “deep tectonic”? please specify

14. Line 269 – 270: I do not understand the meaning. Please rephrase this sentence.

15. Line 278 – 279: What do you mean with “Late Mesozoic lithology”?. Do you mean “Late Mesozoic rocks”?

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The research is very valuable and the manuscript is interestingly written. The paper is a worth contribution to the understanding of the geodynamics and structure of the upper mantle in the wider Philippine area, which is evidently geologically very complex, and as a consequence very seismically active.

The authors conceived the work in a meticulous way - everything was elaborated in detail and clearly presented. The conclusions are logical and are based on accurate and sufficient data.

Therefore, it deserves to be published.

I have just a few very minor corrections marked in the attached PDF file and:
- variables in the text should be uniformed/edited;
- when referring to some references in text (instead of number) with name of authors the year should be inserted.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Thank you very much for your valuable comments. I have made some modifications according to your comments. All variables in the text have been uniformed.