The Impact of Pre-Existing Faults on Fault Geometry during Multiphase Rifts: The Jiyang Depression, Eastern China
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
1- Line 32: Not most petroliferous basins. There are petroliferous basins with inversion structures and other with stratigraphic-trap plays. I would change it to "rift basins"
2- I suggest the authors to add a part in the introduction about the fault controls on sediment dispersal during the syn-rift stages. This also will influence the type of facies deposited and therefore the architecture of petroleum system elements.
3- The authors should refer to the utilizied seismic attributes in the methodology chapter.
Author Response
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Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
During manuscript “The impact of multi-phase extension and pre-existing faults activity on Cenozoic fault geometries…” evaluation, I am pleased to report that the following aspects are thoroughly addressed:
- *Novelty:* The research question is original and well-defined, and the results provide a significant advancement to the current knowledge.
- *Scope:* This work is well-suited for the journal scope.
- *Significance:* The results are interpreted appropriately, and all conclusions are justified and supported by the results. The hypotheses are also carefully identified as such.
- *Quality:* The article is written in an appropriate way, and the data and analyses are presented in a clear and concise manner. The highest standards for presentation of the results are used.
- *Scientific Soundness:* The study is correctly designed and technically sound. The analyses are performed with the high technical standards, and the data is robust enough to draw conclusions. The methods, tools, software are described with sufficient details to allow another researcher to reproduce the results.
- *Interest to the Readers:* The conclusions are interesting for the readership of the journal. The paper will attract a wide readership.
- *Overall Merit:* The work advances the current knowledge, and the authors address an important long-standing question with smart experiments.
- *English Level:* The English language is appropriate and easily understandable.
Overall, this manuscript is well-written, scientifically sound, and makes a significant contribution to the field. I highly recommend it for publication in this journal.
Minor editorial comments are as follows.
(1) It would be desirable to add to the Abstract the specific suggestions made in lines 444-448
(2) it is desirable to improve the readability of the legends in Figs. 1b, 4, 5, 6, 7, 10, 11 (right column)
(3) it is desirable to add in the captions to the figures the deciphering of abbreviations; this applies to Figs. 4, 5, 6, 6, 7, 9, 11 (right column)
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Dear Authors, your manuscript is very interesting because of your use of the seismic data, to try and reconstruct the relationship between different fault systems, and finally to consider these results with hydrocarbon generation and migration. However, the submitted manuscript needs robust improvements and same clarifications and I suggest reconsidering in order to improve your interesting work.
Suggestions:
Rewrite the fault geometries. Use more structural sketches (maps o sections).
The descriptions are at times confusing.
The used figures are illegible due to the scale, illegible text, bed legend and so on.
For example, the maps of figures 5, 6 and 7 are very small and illegible.
In the figure 9, you talk about a map (legend) but it is incorrect. Are you talking about faults displacement?
Finally, in paragraph 6.2 Implications for hydrocarbon exploration by multi-phase extension are incomplete because you didn’t introduce information about source rock, time generation, expulsion and so on.
The relationship from fault systems and hydrocarbon are not supported by data and seems impossible considering the evolution of the area.
I encourage you to rewrite it considering the above comments because your manuscript is very interesting and deserves to be published as soon as possible.
A Moderate editing of English language required
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 4 Report
Dear Authors,
after careful reading of your very interesting and informative manuscript, I find it really suitable to this journal. It addresses an internationally important research question with the representative example. It is based on strong methodology and original information. I especially like the links to the previous studies and the conceptualizations. The manuscript is clear, well referenced, and adequately illustrated. Indeed, something should be amended, and I hope my recommendations will help you.
1) Title: please, try to shorten a bit and make attractive to the international research audience.
2) Key words: please, avoid the words already used in the title.
3) Figure 1: the sources of the main and insert images?
4) Introduction and some other parts: I recommend to consider several very fresh works on faults:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0012825218302198
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0191814116301389
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0191814117300457
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S019181411730158X
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0191814117302675
I do not exclude that you may prefer to make additions to your methodology or interpretations in regard to what is written in these works.
5) Line 112: the age of these movements?
6) Section 3, 2nd paragraph: please, write more about the analytical procedures, the used software, etc. For instance, how the activity rate was calculated?
7) Line 187: Eocene and Oligocene are epochs, not periods! Please, check through the entire manuscript (e.g., Line 239, where Upper Jurassic … periods -> Late Jurassic epoch; also Line 340, etc.etc.). You have to use proper terms for time units everywhere!
8) Page 7, figure: plift -> Uplift.
9) Subsection 6.1: where you consider the past plate tectonics, it is strongly recommended to attach your statements to the general, well-known plate tectonic developments by C. Scotese and D. Mueller.
10) Conclusions: please, state the limitations of this study and the perspectives of future research.
11) The writing needs linguistic polishing and punctuation check.
12) The figures are nice, but many of them should be enlarged anyhow to make all details well-visible.
The writing needs linguistic polishing and punctuation check. I also see major problem with the stratigraphical terminology!
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 3 Report
Dear authors
in this second review I would like to highlight many comments that I wrote in the first one:
Rewrite the fault geometries.
Use more structural sketches (maps o sections).
Fig. 2 is illegible
Fig. 3: Include only the used seismic cubes or use a different color
Fig.4 illegible legends
Fig. 5: put the seismic trace in the attribute map
Fig. 5c and 5d are illegible
Fig. 6: put the seismic trace in the attribute map
Fig. 6a and 6b are illegible.
Fig. 7a and 7b are illegible.
Fig. 7 illegible legend
Fig. 9 illegible legend
Finally, in paragraph 6.2 Implications for hydrocarbon exploration by multi-phase extension are incomplete because you didn’t introduce information about source rock, time generation, expulsion and so on.
The relationship from fault systems and hydrocarbon are not supported by data and seems impossible considering the evolution of the area. Use some seismic lines to better explain your proposal.
Minor editing of English language required.
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 3
Reviewer 3 Report
Dear authors,
thank you for your efforts in improving the manuscript.
It is ready to published.
minor editing is requested.
