Assessment of Liquefaction Hazard and Mapping Based on Standard Penetration Tests in the Long Beach and Tuzla Regions of Cyprus
Max Oke Kluger
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
This paper is well written and organized. The methods and results are meaningful for evaluating liquefaction hazard. Minor revisions can be made based on the following items.
1. Highlights of this study should be elaborated more clearly to show the new contribution of the present study compared with literature.
2. The legend in Figure 2 is incorrect.
Author Response
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Reviewer 2 Report
The paper is of general good quality and relevant to the journal’s audience. I have some minor suggestions.
(1) In Figs. 9, 10, and 15, please indicate the resolution of data points for the FS curves. It is recommended to plot original data with straight connecting lines rather than smoothed representations of data
(2) In lines. 338 – 353 and Figs. 11 and 12, please explain the method used to interpolate data points (e.g., kriging). Also, it is recommended to plot the core locations onto the contour maps. Otherwise, the quality of the interpolated information cannot be assessed. Note the maps look squeezed vertically in the pdf provided.
(3) In Figs. 13 and 14 (appear in reversed order) and related text, please improve the readability of the legends (black numbers are not legible on blue background). Please explain in the text how the figs were created, e.g., what interpolation method was used. Do both map types (satellite image and contour map) have the same coordinate system? The quality of readability of this figure would be improved, if the contour maps were integrated as overlays into the satellite images.
(4) In lines 426ff, please explain what type of regression analysis was calculated and what parameters are provided in Tab. 2 (e.g., pearson correlation coefficient).
(5) Fig. 16 is of poor resolution. Not all labels are legible.
Author Response
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Reviewer 3 Report
The paper entitled "Assessment of Liquefaction Hazard and Mapping Based on Standard Penetration Tests in the Long Beach and Tuzla Regions of Cyprus" is a research on liquefaction hazard and the presentation of liquefaction potential maps.
- The paper can be published after some corrections.
- Page 1, Introduction: Insert more details about Cyprus area. For example considering the following paper:
- - Cavallaro A., Cessari L. and Gigliarelli E., (2013): "Site Characterization by in Situ and Laboratory Tests for the Structural & Architectural Restoration of Saint Nicholas Church, Nicosia, Cyprus"; Proceedings of the 2nd International Symposium on Geotechnical Engineering for the Preservation of Monuments and Historic Sites, Napoli, 30 - 31 May 2013, pp. 241 - 247. (ISBN: 978-1-138-00055-1).
- Introduction: Insert more details about liquefaction phenomena. For example considering the following paper:
-- Idriss, I.M.; Boulanger, R.W. "Semi-empirical Procedures for Evaluating Liquefaction Potential during Earthquakes"; In Proceedings of the 11th IC SDEE/3rd ICEGE Proceedings, Berkeley, CA, USA, 7 - 9 January 2004; Volume 1, pp. 32 - 56.
-- Idriss, I.M. "An Update to the Seed-Idriss Simplified Procedure for Evaluating Liquefaction Potential"; In Proceedings of the TRB Workshop on New Approaches to Liquefaction, Washington, DC, USA, 10 January 1999.
-- Cavallaro A., Capilleri P. and Grasso S., (2018): "Site Characterization by in Situ and Laboratory Tests for Liquefaction Potential Evaluation during Emilia Romagna Earthquake"; Geosciences, Special Issue: "Site-Specific Seismic Hazard Analysis: New Perspectives, Open Issues and Challenges", Geosciences 2018, 8(7), 242, pp. 1 - 15. (ISSN: 2076-3263) DOI:10.3390/geosciences8070242.
- Page 9, Line 220: Probably the sentence “fineness correction” is better to replace it with “fines content”.
- Page 10, Figure 8: The meaning of the terms 35, 5 and 15 in the caption is unclear.
- Page 12: Figures 10 and Figure 9 are reversed.
- Page 20: Is the first author in [6], [19] and [20] the same as [30]?
Author Response
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Reviewer 4 Report
The article is devoted to the compilation of a map of soil liquefaction under seismic impact for the eastern region of the island of Cyprus, namely the cities of Tuzla and Long Beach, based on SPT.
The presented article is not a research paper, because a real scientific problem has not been posed. The goal set by the authors has an exclusively engineering meaning
As a consequence of the limitations of the goal that was set, the results of the work do not have scientific novelty and are not of scientific interest.
The article requires serious revision in terms of setting and solving a scientific problem, including, as indicated by the authors, comparing various methods of testing soils to determine the liquefaction potential.
Author Response
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Round 2
Reviewer 4 Report
The authors' response to the main remark cannot be considered satisfactory. Examples of similar publications by other authors in journals are not a reason for accepting this work in the journal. Unfortunately, the authors do not take into account that new scientific results should be published in the journal. However, in this paper, only the results of engineering data processing are proposed, no new ideas are expressed.
Additionally, I would like to note that the work itself seemed interesting to me and important for the region, but insufficient for publication in the journal. It is necessary to explicitly show the scientific problem that the authors solved, and not the full-time engineering work.
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.docx
