Instructions for Authors of GAC® Publications
THE PUBLISHING PROCESSAfter all of the papers have been submitted, reviewed by referees, and revised if necessary, the Publications Committee will review the project and recommend to GAC® Council formal acceptance or rejection of the volume.
Following the refereeing of his/her manuscript, an author will be given the opportunity to revise the manuscript (in some cases he/she may be requested by the editor to make revisions in order for the manuscript to be accepted). Authors of contributions should always communicate directly with the volume editor. After submission of the revised manuscript, the volume editor will ensure the revisions have been made, then send all manuscripts in the volume to the GAC® Production Co-ordinator, who will make final preparations of the volume for the printer. Page proofs will be sent to the author, who should correct typographical errors only, and then return the proofs and manuscripts to the volume editor within 3 days of receipt. Extensive changes are to be avoided at this stage; however, if changes are necessary, their cost will be charged to the author.
COMPLIMENTARY COPIES
One free copy of Special Paper, Short Course Notes, and GEOtext volumes
will be provided to all editors of a volume up to a maximum of 6 copies.
One copy will be available for each author at cost plus shipping and handling
until the publication release date. Normally, up to 6 copies may be distributed
for review. Other free copies go to: GAC® headquarters, the Publications
Chair, and the National Library.
REPRINTS
Reprints will be available to authors. Reprints must be requested prior
to the printing deadlines on the form that will be sent to authors with
their page proofs.
PREPARING THE MANUSCRIPT
Three double-spaced hard copies of the manuscript must be provided
to the volume editor for the review process. After review, the author must
return a clean, revised manuscript with an accompanying disk (PC in Word
or WordPerfect) incorporating the revisions. Please number the pages. The
author's name, affiliation, and address must appear under the title, along
with an E-mail address, and telephone and fax numbers (for the volume editor’s
use).
Length
The maximum length of a manuscript is 12,000 words, (approximately
forty-eight 8.5 x 11" pages of double-spaced type) inclusive of abstract
and references, unless otherwise indicated by the volume editor. (For Geoscience
Canada articles, please contact the editor.) The length of a manuscript
must be reduced in proportion to the number of figures, plates, and tables
to be included.
Running Head
Authors of papers for a GAC® publication should include a short title
(up to 50 characters) for page heads.
Keywords
Authors should also select up to 25 keywords if an index is to be included.
Abstract/Résumé
This is a paragraph of fewer than 250 words that summarizes the paper.
Abstracts are published in French and English. Authors may submit their
own translations.
Footnotes
Footnotes in the text will not be accepted; please incorporate this
information into the text.
Subheadings
The GAC® uses three levels of headings in the text and does not use
decimal headings or section numbers:
THIS IS A LEVEL ONE HEADING
This is a Level Two Heading
This is a Level Three Heading
Figure and Table Citations
Each figure and table must be cited at its appropriate point in the
text and in numerical order. If a figure has several parts, these should
be lettered alphabetically (i.e., A, B, C, etc.) and should be cited in
the text as Figure 12A or Figures 13C, 14D.
Equation Numbering
Displayed equations that are referred to in the paper must be numbered
consecutively throughout the paper; the number (in parentheses) should
be to the right of the equation. Appendix equations should be numbered
as (A-1), (B-2), etc.
References
References must be double spaced. Please refer to the examples of various
types of references below. Organize the references by letter-by-letter
alphabetization of the first item in the reference, as in the sequence
of Davis, DeCosta, MacArthur, Macdonald, McDonald, Megard, Vallentyne,
von Bitter.
List references by the same first author in the following order: first
author alone, chronologically; one or more co-authors, alphabetically,
then chronologically. Use only initials for first names. The following
list illustrates this sequence:
Delorme, L.D., 1968, ...
Delorme, L.D., 1970a, ...
Delorme, L.D., 1970b, ...
Delorme, L.D., 1972, ...
Delorme, L.D., Duthie, H.C. and Harper, N.S., 1986, ...
Delorme, L.D. and Zoltai, S.C., 1984, ...
Delorme, L.D., Zoltai, S.C. and Kalas, L.L, 1977, ...
Alphabetize different first authors having the same last name according to the initials of their first names. If their initials are the same, alphabetize them by their full names or by the last names of the second authors if they exist.
Use the following style for dates: 5 Sept. 1980 (but spell out months in the text). Always spell out the months March through July.
Examples of Reference Presentation
Dixon, J., 1986, Comments on the stratigraphy, sedimentology and distribution of the Albian Sharp Mountain Formation, northern Yukon: Geological Survey of Canada, Paper 86-1B, p. 375-381. [Note: Paper 86-1B, not "in Current Research, Part B" or "Paper 86-1, Part B."]
Eyles, N., Clark, B.M., Kaye, B.G., Howard, K.W.F. and Eyles, C.H., 1985, The application of basin analysis techniques to glaciated terrains: An example from the Lake Ontario Basin, Canada: Geoscience Canada, v. 12, p. 22-32.
Gieskes, J.M. and Johnston, K., 1984, Interstitial water studies, Leg 81, in Roberts, D.G., Schnitker, D., et al., Initial Reports of the Deep Sea Drilling Project: United States Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, v. 81, p. 829-836. [Note: et al. is acceptable in this case, as the Initial and Scientific Reports of Deep Sea Drilling and later Ocean Drilling projects often have more than 20 authors.]
Hattori, K. and Cameron, E.M., 1984, Sulphate in the late Archean seawater: Evidence from the Hemlo gold deposit, Ontario [abstract]: Geological Association of Canada-Mineralogical Association of Canada, Program with Abstracts, v. 9, p. A71.
Irving, E. and Wynne, P.J., 1990, Paleomagnetic evidence bearing on the evolution of the Canadian Cordillera: Royal Society of London, Philosophical Transactions, v. A331, p. 487-509.
Kauffman, E.G. and Caldwell, W.G.E., 1993, The Western Interior Basin in Space and Time, in Caldwell, W.G.E. and Kauffman, E.G., eds., Evolution of the Western Interior Basin: Geological Association of Canada, Special Paper 39, p. 1-30.
Macdonald, A.J., 1987, PGE mineralisation and the relative importance of magmatic and deuteric processes: Field evidence from the Lac des Iles deposit, Ontario, Canada [abstract]: geoplatinum '87, Milton Keynes, UK, 23-24 April 1987.
Macdonald, G.A., 1971, Volcanoes: Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 510 p.
Woodsworth, G.J., Anderson, R.G., Armstrong, R.L., Struik, L.C. and van der Heyden, P., 1991, Plutonic regimes, in Gabrielse, H. and Yorath, C.J., eds., Geology of the Cordilleran Orogen in Canada: Geological Survey of Canada, Geology of Canada, v. 4, also Geological Society of America, Geology of North America, v. G-2, p. 491-531.
In Press
The GAC® gives works accepted for publication, but not yet released,
a full reference using the words "in press" in place of the journal volume
number and using the year of acceptance as the date.
Unpublished Work
The GAC® does not include in the reference list personal communications,
unpublished data, manuscripts in preparation, or manuscripts not yet accepted
for publication. Refer to them in text in parentheses by first initials
and last name of source, type of material and year. The author may also
include the affiliation of the source, for example (J. Wilson, personal
communication, 1987), (B.L. Smith, University of Massachusetts, unpublished
data, 1979).
Meetings
The common practice of reproducing presentations and distributing them
to only the meeting participants does not constitute publication. If the
abstracts of papers presented at a meeting are published in an abstracts
volume that is generally available (e.g., GAC®-MAC Program with Abstracts
or GSA Abstracts with Programs) then it is considered to be part of the
literature and may be cited. However, if a more complete book or journal
article has been published subsequent to the abstract, then it should be
cited.
Abbreviations
Spell out in full all titles of journals and publishers.
Page Numbers
Use total pages when referencing books (e.g., 388 p.); do not include
pages numbered with Roman numerals (e.g., do not use xviii p. + 388 p.).
In-text Citations of References
Please check that all references in the list appear in the text and
vice versa.
Cite references by last name of author and year of publication in parentheses (e.g., Smith, 1983); cite two authors (e.g., Smith and Jones, 1983, not Smith & Jones, 1983); and cite three or more authors as (Smith et al., 1983). Cite references that have no individual authors by the sponsoring agency (e.g., ROCC Group, 1978).
Cite publications from several years by the same author as (Smith, 1975, 1977). Years, however, do not have to be in chronological order; if the 1977 reference is the most important and others provide subsidiary information, then cite (Smith, 1977, 1975, 1979). Cite multiple publications in the same year by the same author as (Smith and Jones, 1977a,b). In a list of citations, place unpublished material last: (Smith, 1978; Jones et al., 1980, 1982; B. Jones, personal communication, 1982).
If works by different authors with the same last name appear in the same year, distinguish them, when cited in the text, by using the senior author's initials (or first names if the initials are identical, or second author's initials if the senior author's names are identical, etc., e.g., (D.A. Leckie, 1985; R.M. Leckie, 1985). If the works did not appear in the same year and there are only two or three such references, distinguishing the cited references by year alone will avoid confusion.
Similarly, for papers with three or more authors, which appeared in different years, the year alone will distinguish them (e.g., Smith et al., 1983 [= Smith, Jones and Paul, 1983] versus Smith et al., 1984 [= Smith, Paul and Jones, 1984]). However, if papers with three or more authors appear in the same year, these may be distinguished, when cited in the text, by use of the second author, or even the third author if the first two are the same (e.g., Smith, Jones et al., 1983 [= Smith, Jones and Paul, 1983] versus Smith, Paul et al., 1983 [= Smith, Paul and Jones, 1983].
Punctuation in the Text
If the names of the authors are part of the sentence, enclose the year
in parentheses, e.g., "Brass and Archer (1982) have observed that Cretaceous..."
If the entire citation is parenthetical, enclose it all in parentheses,
separating authors from year with a comma and different authors with a
semi-colon. "The largest of these are found in close proximity to the Gallup
Sandstone which pinch-out in fields like Horseshoe (McCubbin, 1969) and
Bisti (Sabins, 1963, 1972; Bergsohn, 1988)."
Citing Parts of a Reference Work
If the author wishes to direct the reader to different parts of a reference
work at different points in the text, include the details in the citation,
not in the reference list. For instance, to cite a page number, figure
or table, the references cited would read (McNeil and Caldwell, 1981, p.
8), (Stott, 1968, fig. 18f) or (Parrish and Gautier, 1993, table II). Be
sure to use a lower case letter at the start of "Figure," "Table," etc.
when referring to illustrative material in a cited publication in order
to distinguish it from illustrative material in the current manuscript.
For example, (Fig. 2; Stott, 1968, fig. 3f) would clearly indicate that
the reference to Figure 2 is in the current manuscript and "fig. 3f" is
not.
Figure Captions
Type all captions together. Do not attach captions to figures.
Tables
1. Capitalize only the first word of the title and proper nouns.
2. Horizontal and vertical rules should be kept to a minimum.
3. Place all footnotes below the last line of the table.
Appendices
Avoid appendices consisting of tables or figures with little or no
text. Such tables or figures should be enumerated in sequence with other
text tables or figures.
PREPARING FIGURES FOR PRINTING
Permissions
If the author is using a figure copyrighted by another, a letter of
permission from the copyright owner must accompany the manuscript when
submitted to the editor. It is the responsibility of the author to obtain
written permission. Acknowledgement of the source of figures should be
made within the figure caption.
General Instructions
Each black and white figure should be a 300 dpi .eps or .tif file (8-bit
greyscale), accompanied by a printout. Figures must be capable of being
reduced. Figures intended to be on facing pages should be brought to the
attention of the volume editor. . Multi-part illustrations should have
each part designated by letter (e.g., A, B, C, etc.). In the case of paleontological
plates, each part should be labelled Figure 1, Figure 2, etc.
Size
The usable printing space available on the page for figures, including
captions, is 177.8 x 235 mm. Authors who wish to submit figures already
reduced to the publication specifications should use the following
guidelines (please note that for copyfitting reasons, figures may be
re-sized by the production co-ordinator):
Three-column format (generally Geoscience Canada):
1 column wide = 55 mm
2 columns wide = 116.4 mm
3 columns wide = 177.8 mm
Two-column format (generally Special Papers):
1 column wide = 85.7 mm
2 columns wide = 177.8 mm
One-column format (generally Short Course Notes):
up to 1 column wide = 177.8 mm
Oversize Figures
Fold-outs, maps in pockets, or tip-ins can be included only if the
author is prepared to pay the entire cost of printing and insertion. They
also must be approved by the GAC® Publications Committee when the publication
is submitted for consideration.
Colour
The GAC® prints colour illustrations; however, the extra costs are borne
by the author. Information on costs can be obtained from the Chairman of
the Publications Committee. Authors who need to use colour images should
provide clear, sharp colour prints, or film, or digital files.
MEASURE AND NUMBER
Units of Measure
Use metric units. However, when using data traditionally measured in
non-metric units, parenthetical addition of metric equivalents is optional
(e.g., ounces per ton). The GAC® recommends that authors use the International
System of Units (SI) (see Table 1). The following guidelines apply:
1. Do not use a period with SI symbols except at the end of a sentence.
2. Use negative exponents to slashes for unit ratios, especially for
complex units (e.g., W·m-2·°C-1, not W/M2/°C). Make
usage consistent throughout the text and figures.
3. Write out units of measure when they are not preceded by a numerical
value (e.g., 24 m·s-1, but "a few metres per second").
| Table 1 Frequently used SI base, derived and other units and their symbols or abbreviations. |
|
Name |
Symbol/Abbrev'n | Name | Symbol/Abbrev'n |
| Base Units | Other Units | ||
| metre | m | second (time) | s |
| kilogram | kg | minute (time) | min |
| second | s | hour | h |
| ampere | A | day | d |
| kelvin | K | year or annum | y or a |
| mole | mol | degree (location) | ° |
| minute (location) | ´ | ||
| Derived Units | second (location) | ´´ | |
| hertz | Hz | hectare | ha |
| newton | N | litre (10-3 m3) | L |
| pascal | Pa | millilitre (10-3 L) | mL |
| joule | J | tonne (103 kg) | t |
| watt | W | kilometre (103 m) | km |
| coulomb | C | centimetre (10-2 m) | cm |
| volt | V | millimetre (10-3 m) | mm |
| ohm | ![]() |
micrometre (10-6 m) | ![]() |
| degree Celsius | °C | nanometre (10-9 m) | nm |
| becquerel | Bq | ||
| gray | Gy |
Numbers in Text and Tables
1. Use the following style for dates in text and tables: 3 March
1976.
2. Give ranges in full (1956-1958, not 1956-58; p. 291-294, not 291-4).
3.Do not use an apostrophe in referring to a decade in the plural (1960s,
not 1960's).
4. Insert a zero before the decimal point in a number less than unity
(0.002, not .002).
5. Use commas in numbers of five or more digits (15,987). Do not use
a comma in four-digit numbers (2648).
6. Do not spell out numbers that precede units of measure (1%, 3 days,
2 years; 0.01 m; 5, 2.5 and 1 mL) except at the beginning of a sentence,
in which case the unit of measure is also spelled out (Ten metres ...).
7. Use a space between a number and a unit abbreviation (16 m), but
do not use a space between a number and the symbols of angle (25°18´35´´).
8. Do not spell out numbers implying arithmetical manipulation (a factor
of 7; an increase of 3 times).
9. Spell out numbers less than 10 having
no arithmetical implication (the four curves in the figure; more than nine
experiments).
10. Spell out ordinals (first, not 1st).
11. Spell out a number that directly precedes or follows a numeral
(ten 2-m strips; 136 two-hour intervals).
12. Use Arabic numerals in names of artificial satellites, rockets,
etc. (Apollo 11, Anik 2).
13. Use Arabic numerals for figure and table numbers (Figure 15, Table
23).
14. Use Arabic numerals for plates, with individual photographs labelled
as figures (Plate 5, Figure 1, Figure 2, etc.).
PUNCTUATION
Please refer to The Canadian Style A Guide to Writing and Editing (1997,
Dundurn Press Limited, Toronto) and/or A Canadian Writer’s Reference (1998,
Nelson Canada, Toronto).
Miscellaneous
1. Figure captions should be complete sentences. Phrases regarding
origin (after Smith and Jones, 1988) should be included in parentheses
within a sentence rather than standing alone.
2. The preferred order when using parentheses, brackets and braces
is ([{}]).
CAPITALIZATION AND ITALICIZATION
Use minimal capitalization. The GAC® capitalizes Earth, Sun and Moon
and uses lower case for earth science, north/south pole, northern/southern
hemisphere, and equator. Protected trade names are capitalized. Use lower
case for model 1 and experiment 5, but capitalize Figure 12, and Table
23.
Geographical
The names of counties, regions, cities, and other official and specific
political and administrative areas, and topographic features are capitalized
(e.g., Canada, the Churchill River, Kent County, Harwich Township). Generic
terms such as "city," "county", "province" or "state" begin with a lower
case letter when they precede the proper name (e.g., the city of Winnipeg,
the province of Newfoundland). Generic terms are not capitalized when used
in the plural (e.g., lakes Superior and Huron; Grey and Bruce counties).
Geological
The GAC® follows the conventions set by the 1983 North American Stratigraphic
Code. The 1983 Code was published by the North American Commission on Stratigraphic
Nomenclature in American Association of Petroleum Geologists Bulletin (,e.g.
v. 67, p. 841-875).
Names of formal stratigraphic units are capitalized, names of informal stratigraphic units are lower case. Article 3 of the Code outlines the requirements for establishing formal stratigraphic units. Formal terms (member, group, formation, etc. will be capitalized when used with the name as defined (e.g., ... samples from the Akaitcho Group were analyzed ...), but will not be capitalized when the word is used alone (e.g., ... the four layers within the group).
Common errors in stratigraphic terminology include :
1. The use of "complex"
instead of "suite" when dealing with plutonic rocks (a complex includes
rocks of more than one class [e.g., plutonic and metamorphic rocks]; a
suite includes a range of rocks of the same class [i.e., all plutonic rocks]).
2. The overuse of form terms in the nomenclature of plutonic rocks (e.g.,
stock, batholith) when simpler terms will suffice.
3. Confusion over the
use of rock type versus formation when naming units (i.e., Lockport Dolomite,
not Lockport Dolomite Formation or Lockport Formation). Such confusion
can be avoided by carefully reading the 1983 Code. In addition, the Canadian
Society of Petroleum Geologists publishes a series of stratigraphic lexicons
for Canada, which provides a guide to existing stratigraphic terminology.
No conventions exist with respect to the capitalization of structural features (faults, shear zones), belts (greenstone belts, subdivisions or orogens), subprovinces and orogens, terranes, tectonic assemblages and the like. In such cases, use lower case letters (e.g., Abitibi greenstone belt, Elzevir terrane, Moon River domain, Destor-Porcupine fault).
Geological Time
The GAC® uses GSC Open File 3040.
The GAC® capitalizes the names of all periods, epochs and ages. For geological time subdivisions, i.e., periods in the Paleozoic and Mesozoic and epochs in the Cenozoic, the terms Early, Middle and Late are capitalized. When dealing with strata in these periods and epochs, the subdivisions Upper, Middle and Lower are capitalized. All other usages of the time and strata subdivisions are used in lower case.
Mining
The term "mine" is capitalized when used as a name (Deer Creek Mine).
If a modifier is present before the noun, then "mine" is lower case (Deer
Creek diamond mine). The terms mill, property, prospect, occurrence and
deposit always begin with a lower case letter, whether they are used with
a name.
Paleontological
The scientific name of a phylum, order, class, family or genus is capitalized;
the name of a species or subspecies is not (e.g., the phylum Arthropoda).
In addition, the scientific name of a genus and/or species and/or subspecies
is italicized (e.g., the genus Neocardioceras, the species Neocardioceras
juddii). The first time a Latin term (genus and species) is mentioned,
it is written out in full and in italics; after that and in the same paragraph,
it is referred to by the short form (e.g., first mention: Neocardioceras
juddii; second and continuing usage in the same paragraph: N. juddii).
If used in the next paragraph, the first mention must be again written
out in full.
Italicization
In addition to the paleontological, zoological and botanical use of
italics, common words or abbreviations are e.g., i.e., ca., cf., circa,
versus, in situ, en echelon, etc. When a section of type is typeset in
italics, any words that would normally be in italics are reversed into
roman type.
SPELLING, HYPENATION AND ABBREVIATIONS
Spelling
1. The GAC® uses the Gage Canadian Dictionary (1998, Gage Educational
Publishing Company, Toronto) as a primary reference. Where there are two
spellings for a word, use the spelling that is listed first, or the spelling
for which there is a definition.
2. For abbreviations and technical spellings, authors should refer
to the American Geological Institute Glossary of Geology (Third Edition,
1987).
Hypenation
Please refer to The Canadian Style A Guide to Writing and Editing (1997,
Dundurn Press Limited, Toronto).
Abbreviations
1. Identify abbreviations where they are introduced (with the exception
of protected trade names, e.g., IBM, BP, etc.).
2. Do not abbreviate the names of organizations in reference lists.
3. Write out names of months throughout the text. Names of months may
be abbreviated only in tables, but note that the months March through July
must always be written out.
4. Do not use symbols as a substitute for words in text. For example,
in text, write out the words "asterisk," "plus or minus," and "greater
than" when they precede text; use the symbols *, ± and > with numbers.
The exception to this would be when listing mineral assemblages. The symbols
+ or ±, with spaces on either side, are used to link the minerals
(e.g., quartz + feldspar ± biotite).
5. When referring to a diagram in the text, the word "Figure" should
be spelled out, e.g., "As indicated in Figure 22, the analysis of the sample
lies in the region defined as tholeiitic basalt." When reference to a diagram
is parenthetical, the word "Figure" is abbreviated, e.g., "analysis of
sample 24A, when plotted on the AFM diagram (Fig. 22), indicates the sample
is a tholeiite."


