Recent Developments of Exploration and Detection of Shallow-Water Hydrothermal Systems

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Please see the attached document for review comments and suggestions.

 

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The paper is a review of the exploration and detection aspect of shallow hydrothermal (HT) vent systems. While this is interesting and informative, as to what methods are being used and/or developed, very little discussions about the importance of detection and measuring SHT vents to the greeter science were made in the manuscript. I would suggest some work to be done here to make the paper citable and informative. I have highlighted this point at the end of this review (Discussion and Conclusion section). Nevertheless, this paper is somewhat adequate, but, for publication for this journal, it can be improved with the suggestion listed below: 

1. The title is too bland, I would suggest to change it to: Recent developments of exploration and detection of shallow-water hydrothermal systems.
2. To ease the readability, please use the abbreviation HT vents for hydrothermal vents and SHT for shallow hydrothermal.
3. In the introduction, in line 25-26, the authors indicate the role of HT for the scientific community but didn’t add any references, I would request that at least two references are required for the specified science field. HT vents are also of keen interest to the origins of life, i.e., prebiotic chemistry community and astrobiology. This should be added to this sentence because it adds more context to the role of HT vents in science. I suggest that the following reference are added to the text: https://doi.org/10.3390/life10030020 and https://www.mdpi.com/2075-1729/10/5/52
4. In line 32, the authors indicated the number of known SHT to date. I would suggest adding a table indicating the names of these SHT, including their location and their references. If possible, a map can also ease the readers to find these listed SHT along with major deep-sea HT vents. This would, in essence, will provide the readers’ curiosity and interest on the topic. 
5. The authors indicated the reason (in the introduction) why new and other techniques are required for SHT, and deep-sea HT’s types of equipment and methods cannot be used for SHT vents. However, no specific example is given here. Instead, this example is shown in lines 188-195. I would suggest adding this to the introduction. This is to add importance to why new and other kinds of types of equipment are required for SHT vents. 
6. The caption for Figure 1, needs more explanation, especially with the method of measurement techniques. This is explained in the text, and it is still needed in the figure caption too. 
7. Line 78, (3He, H2....) typo for He.
8. Line 80-82, “However, the sensitivity of these features in detecting hydrothermal vents differs. For example, turbidity anomalies can be detected tens of kilometers away, but the precision in locating the source is less than a few kilometers”. I’m curious where the authors got this statement. Please indicate the references for this statement or explain further (the why for these sentences is important to known). 
9.  Line 96, what kind of chemical sensors, please detail it in parenthesis.
10. More elaboration is required for Figures 2 and 3. Also, why the depth profile is needed here, if it doesn’t explain anything, it should be removed. 
11. In line 234-236, what is the reference to this statement? 
12. In line 245, where is Fauna, please indicate the location, eg. sea, and nearby city or country (according to EEZ jurisdictions).
13. Figure 8, please add more details to the Fig.8’s caption. Indicate the colors and what it means. Merely indicating the reader to seak the original reference diverts the reader from your paper. The same applies to Figure 9 and Figure 11.
14. Line 314, Lab is shorthand for laboratory. Please use the full word.
15. Line 317, there is a mistake in this sentence. It’s illegible. Please consider rewriting. 
16. Line 338 - 340, “ The sampler was tested in Kueishan Tao hydrothermal vent field. Samples with higher purity comparing with glass-bottle-collected samples were successfully obtained”....and what were the differences and output from this comparison? This is hanging and would require some differences being discussed in the paper. 
17. Line 349 - 366, this part can be removed from the text since it is only informing the reader what is being done by these two research groups. While this may be important to indicate, it doesn’t serve the purpose of the review because it lacks references. Please remove it or add some reference to it. 
18. Line 376,  “conducted at selected sites”, please add examples. 
19. In the “discussion and conclusion” section, many things are unnecessarily repeated from the main text. These repeats are of no use to the reader. Instead, I would suggest that the authors explain how better and newer measurement and detection equipment for SHT vents can have an impact on fundamental science, i.e for geological, biological, and astrobiological reasons. Another part to add would be why the comparison to the deep-sea HT vents are required. What can be potentially known from both these measurements? I would suggest that the authors dig deeper into the literature, from geology to astrobiology. The importance of the SHT vents measurements and detection should be added in the abstract as well. All of this recommendation will ping on readers from these fields to cite your paper. 

 

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

I think the authors have made good changes in the manuscript. However, they didn't indicate this in the abstract; it is still bland. One suggestion is to link the beginning part of the abstract with the typical HT vent, where the potential of new geological, origins of life, and astrobiology ideas importance can be (very) briefly highlighted. Considering that the abstract is the first place readers would read, as I have mentioned earlier, the paper will cast a bigger audience and possibly citations. 

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx