BJGEO

The Brazilian Journal of Geology is published by the Brazilian Geological Society (SBG, in the Portuguese acronym) since 1971 (with a previous title of Revista Brasileira de Geociencias) and has been re-structured in 2013 aiming to be the leading journal for Geosciences in Latin America. The journal is indexed by Web of Science, Scopus, GeoRef and is hosted by SciELO, the largest electronic library of open-access scientific journals.

In this page I’ll post some useful tips and resources for authors interested in submitting their articles to BJGEO.

FAQ about BJGEO:

Are there any charges for publishing (APCs)?

Yes. Starting March 31st 2023, the Brazilian Geological Society (SBG) will charge an Article Processing Charge (APC) for all articles that are accepted for publication (according to the SBG resolution 291; read it here in Portuguese).

This was not an easy decision, but there was no other way to mantain the publication without the APCs. Still, the values are considerably lower than most APCs, whith cost starting at R$ 5,000.00 (USD 1,000.00).

Note that the APC doesn’t cover all the publication costs, which means that the SBG still needs to look for funding and that your membership is key to keep both the society and the journal alive.

The APC value is R$ 1600.00 (about USD 320.00).

BUT…

If at least half of the authors are SBG members, with their annual fees paid, then the APC is waived (in other words, a 100% discount).

Where is the submission link?
Right here. The submission system we use is ScholarOne.

The full link is this: https://mc04.manuscriptcentral.com/bjgeo-scielo

I’ve never submitted a paper before. How does it work?
Here you will find a simple guide about the whole process of publishing your article, from the submission to the final celebration (in Portuguese):

• Da submissão à comemoração, ou como funciona o processo de avaliação de um artigo científico, e qual sua parte nisso - https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.7701479.v1

And here is a video about it: Como funciona a revisão de um artigo científico?

How long does it take from submission to first response?
This is a common question, and we try to give an answer to the author within 2 months since submission, but maybe the best answer is: it depends. Depends on what? A lot, actually.

First you submit you paper, then it goes to the Editor-in-Chief (EIC), who will screen it to see if it’s a good fit for the journal, if it’s an interesting topic, etc. If the paper is considered within our standards, it will be assigned to an Associate Editor (AE). The AE usually handles papers related to his/hers area of specialty (tectonics, petrology, etc) and will invite two or three reviewers to, well, review the paper. Each reviewer has 30 days to return the evaluation and from those recommendations, the AE can make an initial decision (reject/revise).

If the paper needs revisions, it might take weeks or months until it is ready for a second round of reviews. After the revised version is submitted, the AE can make its own assessment (if it was just minor revisions) or will send it to the reviewers again (if it needed major revisions).

Of course, all of this can be delayed. Inviting reviewers is not easy, as we all receive lots of requests and it’s quite common for someone to be unavailable due to an overload of work. And we’re all geoscientists, so we have field trips as well. And we have our professional duties like teaching (for those in academia) and “real work” (for those in the industry). And we have family and friends…

In the end, if the paper is well-written, if the reviewers accept the invitation, if they return their scores in time, if the recommendation is of ‘minor review’ and if the authors send the revised version quickly, it can be accepted within 4-6 months since the initial submission.

Since 2019 we adopted a ‘continuous flow’ of publication. This means that once a paper is accepted, it goes to production (typesetting) and its uploaded to the journal with a final DOI and page numbering (in about 2 weeks).

Can I publish my thesis’ biliographic review as an “Invited Review”?
In short, no. An “Invited Review” should cover a subject with a broad international interest, and we expect the authors to have previous experience on the subject, so they can offer their own knowledge and critique point of view in the article.

There’s a blog post (in Portuguese) about this here.

Any tips about maps?
Yes. Be careful with the UTM zone of your study area. For example, an area in southeastern Brazil will not be in zone UTM “23S”, but “23K” or “23L”.

There’s a blog post about this. Read it here.