Vein Formation and Reopening in a Cooling Yet Intermittently Pressurized Hydrothermal System: The Single-Intrusion Tongchang Porphyry Cu Deposit
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
This paper describes the sequence of vein formation, vein mineralogy, and mineral textures, in a porphyry copper deposit in China. The deposit is special, because it was apparently formed following a single magmatic intrusion (though “pulses” of intrusion are suggested in the text). Vein mineralogy, halo types, and crosscutting relationships are described, and then analyzed in more detail using CL imaging, Ti in quartz thermometry, calculated mineral solubilities, and fluid inclusion data.
My background is mostly in metamorphic petrology, not ore deposits or specifically ore veins. I agreed to review this manuscript because the topic seemed interesting, and I think it is important that even specialized papers be reasonably understandable to those who are less specialized. I did find this to be an interesting paper, though I had some difficulty understanding it, particularly until I reached Fig. 13.
First, I have made numerous suggestions to correct minor grammatical problems. Second, there are some phrases, terms, or whole sentences that I did not understand. In general, these should probably be addressed, though the authors may decide that my comments are incorrect in some cases. Overall, the text reads reasonably well, though there are several parts that need to be more clear. There are parts of the text that amount to long lists, that would be easier to understand in tables. These have been noted in the text.
My main complaints are with the figures. Many of them have text that is too small to read, so breaking them up into more, larger figures would help. Figure 1 has two parts, B and C, with identical faults that have been drafted differently. They should be made the same. Figure 2 has key and map and cross section colors that don’t match one another. Several figures (3 through 9) show important textures, but in general the images are too small to see much, some embedded text is too small or blurry to read, undefined abbreviations are common, and in some cases the captions are inadequate to describe what is in the figures. Figures 10 and 11 have undefined lines and abbreviations, unexplained isopleth labels with no units, and unexplained symbols such as the rectangles with error bars in Fig. 11. In many respects, I was left puzzled until I reached Fig. 13, which explained a lot of the material that was confusing to me.
In fact, Fig. 13 is so important that I suggest moving into the place of Fig. 3, with Figs. 3-12 moving down one. The following text and figures then address different parts of the new Fig. 3 (former 13) with appropriate supporting evidence. Alternatively, putting text lists into tables, and making the figures more clear, would help, too.
As I said, the paper was interesting, and I think it has a lot of good data. It does, however, require a lot of work to put it into publishable form, especially improving the figures and figure captions, replacing some text with tables, and clearing up confusing parts of the text.
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
Dear respected reviewer,
Thank you so much for taking efforts to review and edit our manuscript. We did find your comments, questions, and suggestions very helpful to improve the general clarity and quality, especially the figures.
We have read through your comments, and made changes or responses comment by comment. You will find all the changes marked in the returned word file. In a nutshell, all language-related edits are accepted, and all questions are responded. We understand your largest concern were with the figures and captions. We have totally embellished all figures and captions.
We did not change the place of Fig. 13 because we consider it as a concluding figure that contains information that is defined and revealed only until the very end of the paper. We agree that a figure like Fig. 13 shown earlier in the paper could show more clearly the core idea of the paper, but we are concerned that relocating the figure may result in significant changes in the overall structure. Hope this is acceptable for you.
Best regards,
Xuan Liu
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
This is a carefully carried out project illuminating the history of the deposits in the studied vein research which I recommend be published
Author Response
Dear respected reviewer,
Thank you very much for your valuable efforts reviewing our work and your encouraging recommendation for publication. The revised manuscript remains unchanged regarding interpretation and conclusion, but we have further improved the way it is presented include language polishing and figure embellishment. Hope you will enjoy reading it if you would see the revised version.
Best regards,
Xuan Liu
