Soil Liquefaction and Other Seismic-Associated Phenomena in the City of Chone during the 2016 Earthquake of Coastal Ecuador

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The presented article is devoted to the work of the authors on the implementation of studies on the zoning of the city territory according to the degree of soil susceptibility to dynamic liquefaction. The work touches on a complex and topical issue for the region, in addition, it can serve as a common methodology for the implementation of these works by other researchers and practicing engineers.

The article is written at a good level, although scientific novelty is not explicitly shown.

Author Response

Response Letter to the expert reviewer # 1

“The presented article is devoted to the work of the authors on the implementation of studies on the zoning of the city territory according to the degree of soil susceptibility to dynamic liquefaction. The work touches on a complex and topical issue for the region, in addition, it can serve as a common methodology for the implementation of these works by other researchers and practicing engineers.

The article is written at a good level, although scientific novelty is not explicitly shown.”

Dear expert reviewer,

R.: As authors of the manuscript now entitled “Soil liquefaction and other seismic-associated phenomena in the city of Chone during the 2016 earthquake of coastal Ecuador”, we appreciated a lot your description and comments on the document, as we are certain and convinced, that they have been useful to enrich the fluency and clarity of the entire article. We also confirm that the writing in English has been thoroughly reviewed and accordingly improved. In case of the scientific novelty, we improved with a better description in the abstract as well as in the conclusions, why we consider that our work does reflect a novelty worth applying in various similar environments with several aspects and advantages.

Once again and with all due respect, we are very thankful for your comments and corrections, which helped to see a few unclear parts and or even faults of our side within our manuscript. With your comments we were able to smooth the text, clarify missing parts or wrong spellings, which resulted to a much better than the initial version of this current study.

Thanks a lot on behalf of all authors

Reviewer 2 Report

This manuscript is well written and provide abundant information. However, there are several issues should be corrected or further clarified:

1. The Abstract and Conclusion should be further improved to include not only the qualitative evaluation but also the quantitative analysis.

2. In conclusion remarks, some consideration about future improvement of the manuscript should be reported or about the limitations of the presented study.

Author Response

Response Letter to the expert reviewer # 2

“This manuscript is well written and provide abundant information. However, there are several issues should be corrected or further clarified:

1. The Abstract and Conclusion should be further improved to include not only the qualitative evaluation but also the quantitative analysis.
2. In conclusion remarks, some consideration about future improvement of the manuscriptshould be reported or about the limitations of the presented study.”

Dear expert reviewer,

R.: As authors of the manuscript now entitled “Soil liquefaction and other seismic-associated phenomena in the city of Chone during the 2016 earthquake of coastal Ecuador”, we appreciated a lot your description and comments on the document, as we are certain and convinced, that they have been useful to enrich the fluency and clarity of the entire article. We also confirm that the writing in English has been thoroughly reviewed and accordingly improved. In case of the scientific novelty, we improved with a better description in the abstract as well as in the conclusions, why we consider that our work does reflect a novelty worth applying in various similar environments with several aspects and advantages.

Once again and with all due respect, we are very thankful for your comments and corrections, which helped to see a few unclear parts and or even faults of our side within our manuscript. With your comments we were able to smooth the text, clarify missing parts or wrong spellings, which resulted to a much better than the initial version of this current study.

Thanks a lot on behalf of all authors

Reviewer 3 Report

This manuscript presented the analysis of liquefaction potential during the 2016 earthquake in Ecuador.

The analysis of liquefaction potential at this site is OK. However, the authors cannot demonstrate what is the novelty of this research in the texts

Additionally, the authors just cited many conference proceedings, reports and local journals (journals are not in English), which are not easy to access. There are 77 papers cited in the manuscript and a lot of self-citations.  I believe the authors may not need two third of papers in this list. I suggest that the authors must only keep the important works from Seed, Cubrinovski and some works from top ranked journals in the field.

The introduction is not sufficient. The authors should discuss more on SPT-based approach, as it is the one considered in the later part. The authors should be also clear on why they considered SPT. SPT does not provide continuous soil profile.

Author Response

Response Letter to the expert reviewer # 3

“This manuscript presented the analysis of liquefaction potential during the 2016 earthquake in Ecuador.

The analysis of liquefaction potential at this site is OK. However, the authors cannot demonstrate what is the novelty of this research in the texts

Additionally, the authors just cited many conference proceedings, reports and local journals (journals are not in English), which are not easy to access. There are 77 papers cited in the manuscript and a lot of self-citations.  I believe the authors may not need two third of papers in this list. I suggest that the authors must only keep the important works from Seed, Cubrinovski and some works from top ranked journals in the field.

The introduction is not sufficient. The authors should discuss more on SPT-based approach, as it is the one considered in the later part. The authors should be also clear on why they considered SPT. SPT does not provide continuous soil profile.”

Dear expert reviewer,

R.: As authors of the manuscript now entitled “Soil liquefaction and other seismic-associated phenomena in the city of Chone during the 2016 earthquake of coastal Ecuador”, we appreciated a lot your description and comments on the document, as we are certain and convinced, that they have been useful to enrich the fluency and clarity of the entire article. We also confirm that the writing in English has been thoroughly reviewed and accordingly improved. In case of the scientific novelty, we improved with a better description in the abstract as well as in the conclusions, why we consider that our work does reflect a novelty worth applying in various similar environments with several aspects and advantages.

Additionally, based on your suggestion we added a paragraph in the introduction with some obviously needed explanations about the advantages and uses of the STP method. Furthermore, we added a few and eliminated many more of the references, as proposed by you, leading to 63 instead of 77 references.

Once again and with all due respect, we are very thankful for your comments and corrections, which helped to see a few unclear parts and or even faults of our side within our manuscript. With your comments we were able to smooth the text, clarify missing parts or wrong spellings, which resulted to a much better than the initial version of this current study.

Thanks a lot on behalf of all authors

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

I believe the authors addressed my concerns in the previous round