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name: epsl-review-process description: Use when you need to understand how Earth and Planetary Science Letters (EPSL) evaluates a manuscript — subject-editor desk screening against the frontier bar, expert review typically drawn from the sub-fields the paper joins, and editor-led decisions. It sets expectations and hardens the paper before submission; it does not contact editors.

Review Process (epsl-review-process)

EPSL's review is run by working scientists: a team of editors, each handling manuscripts near their own specialty, screening first for whether the paper is a genuine Letter — concise, decisive, of broad Earth-and-planets interest — before sending it to expert referees. Knowing the two-gate structure (desk screen on significance and fit, then technical review on rigor) lets you harden the paper against each gate in advance. Volatile details (editor names, reviewer counts, timelines) drift; re-check them on the official site.

When to trigger

• Pre-submission stress test against the desk-screen and reviewer axes
• Interpreting a decision letter and planning the response strategy
• Anticipating which sub-fields the referees will come from
• Considering a Comment on a published EPSL paper, or facing one

How EPSL review works

1. Subject-editor triage. The handling editor — a researcher in the paper's area — judges frontier significance, letters fit, and scope. Regional case studies without process-level insight, method reports, and incremental additions to settled questions are declined here, without external review.
2. Referees drawn from the paper's intersection. A manuscript joining geochemistry and geodynamics is typically reviewed by at least one specialist from each side; each referee audits their own layer (traceability and statistics vs physical plausibility and resolution).
3. Editor-led decisions. The handling editor weighs the reviews and decides — reject, major or minor revision, or acceptance; reviews advise, the editor adjudicates.
4. Comments and Replies. EPSL carries formal Comment/Reply exchanges on published papers; they are held to the same evidence standard as Letters and are not a venue for tone.
5. Integrity screening. Plagiarism checks, authorship and competing-interest declarations, and Elsevier's publishing-ethics framework apply at submission.

Desk-decline grounds and where they get fixed upstream

Desk-decline ground	What the editor read	Fix it in
Regional study, no process takeaway	place-name title, local conclusions	epsl-topic-selection
Incremental / does not move the frontier	gap framed as "more data needed"	epsl-literature-positioning
Not letters-shaped	sprawling scope, companion manuscript	epsl-workflow, epsl-writing-style
Better suited to a specialist journal	method-community audience only	epsl-topic-selection
Over length / format non-compliant	cap exceeded, missing statements	epsl-submission

What each referee audits

Referee	Reads first	Rejects on
The analyst (geochem/geochron)	standards, blanks, σ-definitions, MSWD	untraceable numbers
The physicist (geophys/geodyn)	resolution tests, force balance, scaling	interpreting artifacts
The recorder (strat/paleo)	age control, correlation logic	rates without anchors
The planetary scientist	data provenance (mission/archive), assumed parameters	overreach beyond sensitivity

Worked micro-example (illustrative — forecasting the decision on the slab-fluid paper)

Stress-testing the B-isotope + tomography Letter before submission (illustrative reasoning):

• Desk axes: process-level (how slabs lose water) — passes; letters-shaped (one claim, 6,100 words) — passes; portability argued in the abstract — passes.
• Geochemist referee: will probe the δ11B external reproducibility and crustal-assimilation screen — both pre-empted in the supplement.
• Seismologist referee: will ask whether the conduit survives the resolution test — the inset in Figure 1c exists precisely for this.
• Realistic outcome: major revision asking for an alternative-fluid-pathway discussion and one more sensitivity case. Budget for it; "major revision" at a high-bar venue is an invitation to convince, not a near-accept.

The discipline: walk the desk axes and both referees' audits yourself, in writing, before the editor does.

Anti-patterns

• Submitting a locally-framed paper and hoping the editor generalizes it for you
• Preparing for one referee's specialty when the paper straddles two
• Reading "major revision" as acceptance-with-chores
• Responding to a Comment with rhetoric instead of data
• Assuming timelines, reviewer counts, or editor assignments that the official page does not state

Output format

【Desk screen】process-level? letters-shaped? portable? [Y/N each]
【Predicted referees】sub-fields + what each will audit
【Pre-empted objections】list, with manuscript location
【Weakest layer】named honestly + mitigation
【Realistic outcome】reject / major / minor
【Next】epsl-submission (or epsl-revision-and-rebuttal on a decision)

Supplementary resources

• ../../resources/official-source-map.md — editorial structure and policy links (re-check volatile items)
• ../../resources/exemplars/library.md — papers that survived this gauntlet, by sub-field