Gold and Platinum Group Element Occurrence Related to Black Shale Formations in the Southern Urals (Russia): A Review

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

See attached file, please!

Comments for author File: Comments.docx

Author Response

Thank you very much for your thorough review of our article!
We have tried to take into account all your comments.
Changes in the text are marked in yellow.

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Detailed and systematic field work has been carried out in this paper, and tested content of related gold and other elements, and mostly objective descriptions in terms of element content.  The structure of the paper is relatively simple, but it has played a certain role in the accumulation of data for the exploration of black rock series gold and other precious metals in Southern Urals. 

I have a question about whether the data in the paper is relatively simple, but this does not affect the publication of the paper.

Author Response

Thank you very much for reviewing our article!

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The comments and a marked up draft are in the attached zip file

Comments for author File: Comments.zip

Author Response

Thank you very much for reviewing our article!
Special thanks for the explanations and literature on the ore formation model! We will definitely take them into account in further research.

Reviewer 4 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The submitted manuscript reports geochemical data of noble metals analyzed in carbonaceous sediments collected in the Russian Southern Urals. The authors reprtd a detailed geological description of the studied area and based on the available data, provide a reliable genetic model. Therefore the manuscript can be accepted after minor-moderate revision. Here are some comments that I hope will help the Authors to improve their manuscript.

1) Introduction. This chapter is a little bit long. I suggest to simplified it. Lines 28 and 29. It is sufficient to name such giants as Broken Hill, Muruntau abroad and Sukhoi Log in Russia. What is the meaning of this sentence. Only platinum?

2) I strongly suggest to the Authors to include a table with the list of the studied deposits with their main characteristics.

3) Some PGE have been analyzed but they are not really discussed in detail despite of the title. I recommend to include some figures with PGE and Au spidergrams.

4) Conclusions. No information about the PGE are provided.

With my best regards.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

I am not a native English speaker, but for me English was fully understandable.

Author Response

Thank you very much for reviewing our article!
We tried to take your comments into account: part of the text was shortened, the introduction was expanded.
Of course, the binary diagrams Pt – Pd; Au/(Pt+Pd) – Pt/Pd; Au – Pt/Pd; Au – Ag, as well as normalization to the continental crust, were constructed by the authors for all carbonaceous shales of the Southern Urals. However, they did not reveal any patterns in the contents and/or redistribution of noble metals either by structural-formational zones or by the age of the host sediments. Therefore, in this article it was decided to limit ourselves to a summary description of the deposits and newly identified manifestations. We hope that in the future, we will be able to resolve this issue.