Pleistocene Glaciations of the Northwest of Iberia: Glacial Maximum Extent, Ice Thickness, and ELA of the Soajo Mountain

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper entitled "Pleistocene glaciations of the northwest of Iberia: glacial maximum extent, ice thickness, and ELA of the Soajo Mountain" presents a recostruction of Pleistocene glaciation in this peculiar mountain range.

The paper orgranization is good and each chapter is well presented and clear. The data presented are numerous with several different methods applied. I am not qualified to assess the quality of English but the readability is good.

My only comment concerns the figures. At the print scale are difficult to read. In particular Figure 1, Figure 2 and Figure 8 present legend and contents too small. Please consider improving the quality.

In relation with these considerations, I have to recommend accepting the paper with these minor revisions.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

It was a pleasure to read the paper " Pleistocene glaciations of the northwest of Iberia: glacial maximum extent, ice thickness, and ELA of the Soajo Mountain " submitted for publication in "Land" journal.

This study is interesting, original and well conducted. However, there are some comments to improve the overall level of the manuscript:

1.I don't think you have to put the coordinates in the abstract section.

2. Please consider removing the references you included in your abstract.

3. In general your abstract is too long and too much detailed, please consider shortening it to keep only the most important information.

4. I think you have write at least 1-2 sentences as a general background instead of starting directly to write about the study area.

5. In the last paragraph of your introduction section, kindly specify your objective in a clearer way (eg. the aim of the study was...this study aimed at...etc.)

6. Please include study area in materials and methods section.

7. Figure 2, please cite the references using the instructions for authors instead of putting the year.

8. Are the pictures used in Figure 3, 4, 5...etc. original (taken by the authors) ? if not please cite the reference.

9. Honestly, I really appreciated your work, reading the results section was very pleasant, specifically the part regarding Equilibrium-Line Altitude. The figure were also qualitative, congratulations.

10. Line 545, please add the names of the authors before the citation.

11. Line 557, it's the opposite, please also delate "et"

12. There is a layout problem from lines 572 to 578

13. I think you have to specify the limitations of your study.

14. Please also delete the references from you conclusion section.

Apart from that, I have nothing to say, I wish the authors good luck.

There are some minor mistakes, the authors must meticulously proofread and correct their manuscript but in general the overall English level is quite good.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

A good summary paper, but:

line 117-8; "westward flow........polar front"? c.f. rest of text.

Figures: All need placing earlier in text where first discussed. Writing is too small and figures generally need doubling in size to read text on them.

Figure 2: Dotted lines for moraines? You have dashed lines on map.

Lines 554-5: Precipitation can be snow or rain. Glaciers imply snow in winter!

No consideration of effects of glacial isostacy, nor much dating of the 122 moraines to sort out relative ages. Moraines mark standstill stages, not necessarily the length of the glacial maximum or event. You need more dates to obtain a true chronology.

The English needs a little help in places.

Needs checking to improve terminology , etc.  Generally good, however.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

This article shows clear glacial landforms on the mountains in the North of Portugal. The author utilizes specific glacial deposition landforms, such as moraine ridges, to define the formerly glaciated areas and to recreate their ice thickness, glacial flow, and ELA. The main works include a new identification of the glacial remnants based on topographic LiDAR data, a detailed geomorphological map supported by fieldwork validation, an updated calculation of the glacial surface, ice thickness, and flow for the GME, an estimate of the paleoELA altitudes. The result shows a vast icefield along the Lamas de Vez plateau. There are many good figures like Figure 3 to Figure 7.

Figure 1 is too ambiguous. Many important words, pictures and legends in this figure are not clear, which makes it difficult to understand the general situation of the study area. It is suggested to redraw Figure 1 or place it horizontally to increase the clarity of the contents.

As the author described, LiDAR data is very important, this article is lacking of the process and results of LiDAR data, and it is suggested to add relevant content and figures.

In the part of Materials and Methods, only the GlaRe and ELA-AABR methods are used to reconstruct palaeoglacier and calculate ELA, without comparison of other methods, so the objectivity of the results is greatly reduced. It is suggested to add the comparison of other methods in the parts of introduction or methods to highlight the importance of GlaRe and ELA-AABR method.

There are a number of formatting errors, for example, line numbers superimposed on Table 2, and the left margin of the paragraph of Line 572 is inconsistent with the other paragraph, and so on. The author is advised to modify the format of the article carefully.

This article only deals with the reconstruction and morphological analysis of paleoglacier glaciers, which is of insufficient technical and scientific significance, with less innovation. It is suggested to add relevant data and contents of microclimate change, analyze the reasons and driving forces of paleoglacier changes, so as to provide reference for future glacier changes and climate changes.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf