Neogene Alkali Basalts from Central Slovakia (Ostrá Lúka Lava Complex); Mineralogy and Geochemistry
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Here are my comments about the ms titled “Pliocene alkali basalt from Central Slovakia (Ostrá Lúka lava complex); mineralogy and geochemistry”. Although the ms is well written, the data only confirms the pre-existing work and I think it is best to add new samples for the bulk-geochemistry and also improve by adding p-t calculations and partial melting modeling to show much detailed interpretation on the region. I suggest you create a revised version of the ms.
Line 10-18 The abstract should be expanded a bit, it is too short for the reader to understand your purpose, you only worked on a couple of samples and found the same conclusions with the work in the literature?
Line 25: Olives ? or Olivine?
Line 28: Marginally or Locally?
Lİne 29-30 : Abrupt finish of the sentence
Line 33: what do you mean by” resp.” ?
Line 37: Important in terms of what? Be more specific?
Lİne 40: Subduction of what? Which plate? Tethyan lithosphere or something else?
Line 45-53: Why do you mention 4 stages of volcanism? So the topic of this paper related to the 5th, 6th, or 7th stage? You can explain the earlier ones by grouping them for the reader who is not familiar with the region? Otherwise many unknown names can be confusing for the reader
Line 58: Where is Pliešovská kotlina basin. İn your maps? I am not able to find it.
Line 66: Bellow should be below
Line 97-104: Why you measure the sulfur and carbon values for the basalts? Is there any specific reason? Anywhere are the results of the whole rock geochemistry analysis? what are the error margins of the analysis? Are carbon-sulfur values and whole-rock values measured from two different sample portions?
Lİne 106-132: In which institution Sr-Nd-Pb data produced?
Lİne 136-137: Since you studied very few amount of sample, it is not a surprising result
Line 140: Are those xenoliths or magma chamber cumulates? How did you discriminate against them?
Line 145-147: Not polaroids, pollars.
Line 166: What is the relation of this phrase with the citing articles? Some of them are local, some of them are related with olivines in general, be more specific
Line 169: Can you add citations about the processes you are described? Is that something universally occurred ?
Line 184: You gave also the cpx table the name “Table 1” duplication , also please calculate Mg# numbers of cpx and also for former olivine table
Line 189: How high are the Cr values of the cpx s; please give a range and Show how they are similar to the upper mantle samples? cr values.
Lİne 193: Please also explain high t corrosion? What is that?
Line 196: Study pyroxenes?
Line 204: Correct eclogite writing in fig 6d
Line 221 : ” studied basalts”
Line 220-224: This section should be at the petrography part. or as you mention “mineralogy” section
Lİne 238-245: The problem with that section is the interpretation depending on the two samples which are not representative of a volcanic suite. I suggest you improve the dataset by adding new samples and also compare your results also by adding the data from the literature to these figures
Line 268: OIB character does not always show the upper mantle character, they can just only reflect melting of the metasomatized portions of the lithospheric mantle etc. Check Pilet et al 2011 JOP
Line 318: This is the first time you mentioned this youngest volcanic activity such as 0.5 Ma, why? should be earlier
Line 321: This microplate interpretation also shows up first here. should be earlier
Author Response
Please see attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The paper titled “Pliocene alkali basalt from Central Slovakia (Ostrá Lúka lava complex); mineralogy and geochemistry” (Manuscript ID minerals-1504609), focuses on a scientifically interesting subject that attempts to present new insights on the geochemical, and volcanological evolution of the Ostrá Lúka basalts. The submitted manuscript presents research that is within the scopes of the Journal. However, the interpretation of the geochemical data should be better addressed, and authors should take better advantage of their results. It is necessary to include additional references to better support the findings. Special focus should be given to Chapter Discussion because there are parts that are only discussed in brief (I suggest presenting a compact discussion of about 1-1 ½ page; not with bullets – use reference data of other alkali basalt occurrences for comparison even from other worldwide localities). A dedicated chapter “Conclusions” is also missing (this is ok if you wish to present the conclusive remarks in bullet form). It is also strongly suggested to improve the quality of some of the figures (see Specific Comments) and to make any necessary minor corrections regarding the use of the English language. Based on the above, Major Revision is suggested prior to publication in Minerals.
Specific Comments:
- Abstract should be further supported from the paper’s outcomes; you must be more decisive (e.g. …..zonation of olivine probably indicates…..); very general reference concerning the PT conditions and the isotopic outcomes.
- Very short Introduction; this should provide additional state-of-the-art references, not only from alkaline basalt activity in the local region but also on the broader subject of alkali basalts and their significance (even from older Geological periods than the Neogene in Europe). Furthermore, the Introduction should clearly present the aim and scope of the paper; why is your research important, what problem does it anticipate to solve; is their a research gap that others have not dealt with yet?
- Chapter Geology is quite well supported, however, I would suggest to add some information regarding your own field observations apart from reference data.
- Improve the quality of the letters given in the Legend, it is not easy for the reader to clearly read what is written.
- Chapters 3, 4 & 5 all start with the phrase “We”; it is suggested to correct this.
- Figure 2: it is impossible to identify the sizes of inserted scales, numbers are very small.
- Lines 160-162: This is not a result, this should be mentioned in Chapter Discussion and discussed in comparison to other referenced data.
- Figure 6c & 6d: these plots are used to estimate crystallization depth; to constrain pressure conditions during magma segregation you can use the formula provided by Scarrow and Cox, (1995), J. Petrol. 36 (1), 3–22.
- Figure 9: The TAS diagram is very large and seems to be stretched towards one direction.
- Figures 11 & 12: it is suggested to improve the quality of these diagrams, they are poorly constructed. Why are there no circle symbols in Figure 12 when these are present in Figure 11? In Figure 11, the y-axis letters are very small.
- Figures 11 & 12: It would be nice to insert in these figures a compositional envelope field with referenced analyses from other regions and use the comparison to further build and support chapter Discussion (e.g. degree of fractionation; partial melting; mantle source depth).
- Take better advantage of your isotopic data to support chapter Discussion; use geochemical index ratios such as Sc/Y, Nb/Y, Zr/Nb or of major elements e.g. P2O5/TiO2, CaO/Al2O3 [see for example Koutsovitis et al. Lithos 368–369 (2020) 105604, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lithos.2020.105604]
- It is suggested to include a dedicated Chapter “Conclusions”: This chapter should show and highlight your research findings.
Author Response
Please see attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Comment to Neogene alkali basalts from Central Slovakia (Ostrá Lúka lava complex); mineralogy and geochemistry
This study works on Neogene alkali basalts from Central Slovakia, which are a product of the final phase of Neogene volcanism. The authors suggested that the mineral and chemical composition of the basalts is similar to the Pannonian basin alkali basalts and the Western and Central Europe alkali basalts. Based on the chemical composition of the basalts, the alkaline character of the studied basalts is also documented by the REE contents, showing significant enrichment of LREE a decrease of the contents towards HREE. The Sr, Nd and Pb isotopes indicate an origin from a depleted mantle source.
This is an excellent and essential paper for basalts from Central Slovakia. I suggest the minerals publish it as soon as possible after a minor revision.
General comments:
(1) In his abstract part: the last sentence is “The mineral and chemical composition of the basalts is similar to the Pannonian basin alkali basalts and the Western and Central Europe alkali basalts”. Please think about its tectonic implication. Added one sentence finally emphasizes how vital your work is.
(2) in Introduction part: a little too short, a controversial of the previous study for the mineralogy and geochemistry of Central Slovakia is needed. You can add two to three sentences to present the controversial of the previous study. Then your word is urgent priority.
(3) Mineralogy part: a little more work under microscope should be done to find some alkali-minerals such as nepheline, leucite.
(4) Discussion and conclusion part: a more detail discussion chapter about the implication of the basalt should be added. For example about “Slovakia Neogene alkalic magmatism postdated the Middle Miocene crustal thinning”.
Specific comments:
(1) In Abstract, “Panonian basin” or “Pannonian basin.” ??
Author Response
Dear reviewer, thank you for your statement.
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There is not real controversy about the topic to include in the introduction as previous studies did not focus on the geochemistry of these rocks.
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Nepheline and leucite were observed under the microscope but were not very relevant for the study. A phrase mentionning these minerals was added into the mineralogy part.
Reviewer 4 Report
This article is a revised version of a paper dealing with the petrography and geochemistry of a limited number of samples (2) from recent basalts from Central Slovakia.
In spite of many changes made with respect to the first version, the language remains perfectible and many grammatical errors remain. Edits have been suggested directly on the word document.
The cumulate character of the coarse grained gabbro enclaves is far from established and should be discussed with appropriate evidence; otherwise, alternative interpretations should be forwarded and systematic mentions of cumulate enclaves should be deleted.
In general, there is a mix of data and conclusions (not always supported, see above); in contrast, the conclusion yields geodynamic inferences which should have been introduced in the Geological Setting section.
In short, this article still needs some work but could be acceptable in Minerals pending the requested corrections.
Comments for author File: 
Comments.docx
Author Response
Dear reviewer, thank you for your suggestions.- We have accepted your language improvements, thank you. It seems to us that the term „alkali basalt“ is more commonly used than „alkaline basalt“ so we decided to preserve that.
- We have already discussed the term „cumulate“ with another reviewer. We agree that it is quite hard to discriminate between some sort of xenoliths and magma cumulates. However, the mineral composition of these spots is very similar to the surroungind matrix, therefore we prefer to preserve the term „cumulate“.
- Some minor replacements have been made to improve the inconsistency between results and discussion.
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Dear authors thank you very much for the improvements on the text. Anyhow I firmly believe that the very few numbers of samples did not adequately describe the all petrological complexity of the region and must be improved with the additional set of samples. If you fixed only on mineral chemistry which is also quite okay, you should discuss your data in terms of different aspects. I am not saying the article is bad, but I still do not think it is sufficient to solve any problem in the area.
with my best regards
Author Response
Dear reviewer, thank you for your statement. All samples were quite homogeneous, that is why we decided to analyze in more detail only two of them. Anyway, we will definitely include your suggestion in our future research plans and also increase sampling localities.
Reviewer 2 Report
The paper has been improved compared to the first submission. Authors have complied with the suggestions and corrections provided. Discussions, Conclusions and Abstract successfully display the major findings of the research paper. The English language level has also been improved compared to the previous submission and figures have been corrected accordingly. Therefore, I suggest that this paper should be published in its present form “Minerals” Journal.
Author Response
Dear reviewer, thank you for your statement.
