Sr and Nd Isotopes in Mineral Fractions of Ferromanganese Crusts from the Northernmost Pacific

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear editors and authors:

Mikhailik et al. used the isotopic compositions of neodymium and strontium in four mineral fractions of the hydrogenous ferromanganese crusts of the Northernmost Pacific to sources and mechanism of mineral fractions. Based on the comparison of bulk and different mineral fractions isotopes, they found that the increase of the REE share in the ferrous fraction relative to the manganese fraction does not reflect the participation of hydrothermal matter in the formation of mixed hydrogenous-hydrothermal crust. This study give us a new insight to understand the sources and formation environment of Fe-Mn crusts in the Northernmost Pacific.

However, there is some problems to be solved in the manuscript. I suggest this manuscript should be made some minor modification.

Major points

1.     Line 52: The author just present the problem in this manuscript, but you should add some description about how to solve this scientific problems in what ways.

2.    Line 212: How to determine the warm period in this part, you lack some evidences of dating background.

Minor points:

1.    Line 19: “rear”to”rare”

2.    Line 110: Attention the subscript of “sn”.

Ok

Author Response

Thank you a lot for your suggestions.

The answeres in attached file.

With respect

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

This is an interesting paper, which, however, requires a major revision. In place it is well written, in other places, it is very difficult to follow. These parts also require major English editing.

Additional points:

1. Caption to Figure 3. What is “right panel”?

2. Figure 4 a something is wrong with the Y-axis. You do not normalize PAAS, you should normalize your samples.

3. Your data (Table 2) were previously reported in a local publication (it is OK), but you describe the analytical procedure for isotopes but not for chemical elements. Readers would like to know something about the technique and especially about the precision and accuracy of the methods.

4. In Table 2, data for some elements contain decimal points some others comas. Are they the same or different? Could be puzzling for readers.

5. Line 229 “These waters deduce to lower…” Not clear; re-write

6. Line 233  what is this compound NdPO4?

7. Fig. 6. Histogram might be a better term than “Bar diagram”

The paper should be carefully edited for content and for English.

The paper should be carefully edited for English.

Author Response

Thank you a lot for your suggestions.

The answeres in attached file.

With respect

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

This is an improved version of the manuscript. I have only small points:

 1, Lines 110, 113 and others - Definitions of Eu and Ce anomalies (formulas) are probably incorrect (check that; e.g, search in Google - tens of references)

 

2. Why do you have italics in the middle of text line 211?

3. Line 195 Equation of EpsNd clarify -  number is 1000 or 10⁴ . Now it is somewhat  confusing.

Very minor editing needed

Author Response

We are grateful to you for your comments and suggestions.
All your comments have been taken into account.

With respect,

Authirs

Author Response File: Author Response.docx