Sediment Sources and Dispersion on the Western Sunda Shelf, Malay Peninsula, Southern South China Sea

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The research concerns the sources, differentiation and dispersion of sediments on the western Sunda Shelf, Malay Peninsula, southern South China Sea.
The methodology was adopted correctly. Measurements were also made correctly and without any reservations.
The conclusions are correct. They arise from the course of work.
In my opinion, the work is very well done.

Author Response

Thanks for your kind comments about our present manuscript. The English language was improved by polishing company Editage so that the English of the paper is ok now.

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear Authors,

I have reviewed your interesting manuscript and find it a nice contribution that fits well to the scope of the journal Water. The manuscript is well written, nicely structured and its science is in the right spot. The manuscript needs some minor revision that if you comply will elevate the global impact of the manuscript. I have provided an annotated PDF where you can see my comments linked directly to the sections of the manuscript and here just give you a short summary of my main observations.

1) I think the Introduction could be improved by providing a little bit of more precise geological information of the potential catchmant areas from where the rivers transport sediments to the shallow seas. Don't need some long essay here, just some basic information of the rock types and their main mineralogical assemblages that could be then later connected to the results sections mineral provenance identification.

2) you could use your map images more often in the main text to cite. The map figures need larger labeling and scale as currently they are hard to read.

3) the Discussion chapter would benefit hugely with a page addition of comparative study. Like comparing the identified sedimentary system to some similar shallow marine settings elsewhere and providing some comparative study to see trends of mineral type appearance etc.

4) try to add DOI numbers to add as many cited references as you can, and that is a basic MDPI house rule and also very practical for the readers.

Otherwise I think the manuscript needs just minor revision prior acceptance.

Kind regards

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear Editors and Reviewers:

Thanks for your comments on our manuscript entitled “Sediment sources and dispersion on the western Sunda Shelf, Malay Peninsula, southern South China Sea”. We carefully checked and revised the whole manuscript according to your comments and suggestions. The revised portions are marked in red in the revised manuscript.

Comments:

1) I think the Introduction could be improved by providing a little bit of more precise geological information of the potential catchmant areas from where the rivers transport sediments to the shallow seas. Don't need some long essay here, just some basic information of the rock types and their main mineralogical assemblages that could be then later connected to the results sections mineral provenance identification.

Reply: Thanks for this suggestion. We addedsome basic information of the rock types in the Introduction.The supplementary part is as follows:

The bedrock of the Malay Peninsula comprises Paleozoic-Mesozoic granite, granodi-orite, and Paleozoic sedimentary rocks, which contain mudstones, sandstones, and lime-stones interbedded with andesitic–rhyolitic volcanic rocks.

2) you could use your map images more often in the main text to cite. The map figures need larger labeling and scale as currently they are hard to read.

Reply:According to your suggestion, we cited our images in the main text more often. We checked the map figures and revised the figures using larger labels and scale to make them easy to read.

3) the Discussion chapter would benefit hugely with a page addition of comparative study. Like comparing the identified sedimentary system to some similar shallow marine settings elsewhere and providing some comparative study to see trends of mineral type appearance etc.

Reply:Thanks for this suggestion. We added a paragraph to compare other similar shallow marine settingsto increase the global impact of our work.The supplementary part is as follows:

Similar with the East China Sea Shelf, they both include large river and mountainous small rivers in surrounding mainland. Although Yangtz River supplies huge amount of sediment to the East China Sea Shelf, the mountainous small rivers in southeast China and Taiwan are also unnegligible potential provenances, and sometimes they could provide disproportionate amount of sediment during typhoons or extreme events. Therefore, our study about sediment distribution and dispersion in the Western Sunda Shelf is helpful for us to understand the role of mountainous rivers in global shelf sediments source and sink.

4) try to add DOI numbers to add as many cited references as you can, and that is a basic MDPI house rule and also very practical for the readers.

Reply:Thanks for this suggestion. We have added DOI numbersas many cited references as we can.

Thanks again for your constructive comments.

Yanguang Liu on behalf of all co-authors

2021.09.27