Discovering the Fine-Scale Morphology of the Gulf of Cádiz: An Underwater Imaging Analysis

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Please see the attachment.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Thank you very much for your comments and suggestions.
We plan to continue with this study from a quantitative point of view. But for this we need data from streams closer to the seafloor.
We are currently collecting data in the study area for this purpose.
Therefore, we wanted this first work to be from a qualitative point of view.

We have included this issue as perspectives for further investigations in the Conclusions section.

Reviewer 2 Report

I have carefully read the article "Role of the Bottom Currents and Type of Sediment in the Formation of Fine-Scale Bedforms in the Gulf of Cádiz Using Submarine Video Images" by Raúl Jiménez-Romero and co-authors and I find it very interesting. It is a detailed work of description of superficial structures based on the visual analysis of images obtained by remote methods.

The work is well written and present the adequate bibliographic references.
My comments and suggestions are present in the attached document.

The review of the article will have to include the improvement of figures (maps, diagrams and photographs), namely their graphic quality, in order to support the presented work.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Thank you for your comments and advice.
We have carefully reviewed and accepted your corrections to the manuscript.

Regarding the quality of the figures, we sent the document with the highest resolution, but at some point during the upload, this resolution changed.
However, we have added back the original figures and adjusted their size to the left margin of the manuscript.

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear Authors,

I've examined your manuscript with a great please. It is based on innovative, well-thought research project undertaken in a very representative natural object, and it is well-organized, well-written, and well-referenced. The paper has also significant methodological importance. I'm sure the international research community must learn about these findings and interpretations. I specify some recommendations below, but these are easy-to-follow.

• Please, choose the proper paper type (Article in this case).
• Title: please, shorten and make more attractive.
• Abstract: please, do not introduce the abbreviation because it is not used anywhere else in the abstract. However, it must be introduced in the first place of its use in the main text.
• The sections 2 and 3 can be merged.
• Subsection 4.3: which sedimentological classification do you use to characterize sediment type?
• Subsection 5.2.3: what are your obstacles?
• Subsection 5.2.4: burrows of which kind? If biogenic, it would be reasonable to write about neoichnological patterns.
• Conclusions: please, add perspectives for further investigations.
• Figures: please, enlarge their size (you can use the wide left margin) to see all details and labels.
• References: I recommend to add a few fresh sources, i.e., articles published in top international journals in the 2020s.

Author Response

Thank you very much for your comments. We will now respond to your recommendations:

TITLE. We have modified the title to make it shorter and more attractive: "Discovering the fine-scale morphology of the Gulf of Cadiz: an analysis of underwater images".

SUMMARY. Corrected.

SECTIONS 2 AND 3. We have merged these two sections as "2. Regional environments".

SUBSECTION 4.3. The classification of sedimentary textures has been based on Folk's (1954) ternary diagram, but using the simplified classification proposed by Long (2006) for habitat mapping.

SUBSECTION 5.2.3. Mainly rocks and sessile organisms such as sponges.

SUBSECTION 5.2.4. Now we talk about ichnological patterns in the discussion.

CONCLUSIONS. We have added perspectives for further investigations.

FIGURES. We have improved the quality of the figures and increased their size.

REFERENCES. We have added two recent references.