PONE-D-23-07685

How can past sea level be evaluated from traces of anthropogenic layers in ancient saltpans?

PLOS ONE

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experience and local knowledge greatly helped us while surveying the submerged saltpans of Brbinj. We would like to express our gratitude to Petar Crnčan from the Croatian Natural History Museum for his assistance in identifying the macro-fauna on the site."

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Additional Editor Comments:

I have now received the comments of three external reviewers raising major concerns on your Ms, particularly Reviewer 1 who rejected it. Reviewer 1 recognizes the value of the Ms but also stresses its limitations and how it can make a significant contribution to sea level studies. The reviewer suggests a re-focused of the Ms and provides some good points to do so. Reviewer 2 also acknowledges the outcomes but finds results not entirely conclusive and some parts unclear. Reviewer 3 highlights the potential of the Ms and considers it novel. The same reviewer suggests to provide a more robust paleoenvironmental interpretation of core units, to better constrain the ecology of species and include a part with the data limitation. On the basis of their comments, I am very sorry to not accept the Ms in the present form and reject the Ms but I strongly invite the authors to benefit of reviewers’ comments and encourage its resubmission.

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Partly

Reviewer #2: Partly

Reviewer #3: Partly

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2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: N/A

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: N/A

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Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

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Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

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5. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: Manuscript #: PONE-D-23-07685

Title: How can past sea level be evaluated from traces of anthropogenic layers in ancient saltpans?

Authors: Benny Bechor; Simona Avnaim-Katav; Steffen Mischke; Slobodan Miko; Ozren Hasan; Maja Grisonic; Irena Radić Rossi; Barak Herut; Nimer Taha; Naomi Porat; Dorit Sivan

Article type: Research Article

Dear Dr Frontalini,

Thank you so much for considering me to review this manuscript (details provided above). This manuscript reads quite well and was also very interesting. As and introduction, I work on coastal system and environmental changes on those systems using chronological, sedimentological, geochemical and micropaleontological proxies. This manuscript sounded really interesting to me, I must say. I would say that the research is very valuable and worth publishing but, and here is the “but”, I do not see how this work responds to the goal of using these anthropogenic remains for sea-level studies. Much less at the time scales that the authors identified. I am sorry to say but I struggle to see how this study make a significant contribution to sea level studies. Few notes on why I say this. The authors did not create sea level index points (SLIPs) and as in fact they mention limiting points. In fact, these locations need to be fully subtidal to allow tides to properly flood them and allow us to, more or less successfully, create a relationship between the depositional environment and the tidal frame. If they are only flooded partially, the problem we would encounter would be that the hydrodynamics are quite complex and we cannot reconstruct the changes in the tidal frame locally. At larger time scales, this could not be such a great problem but here we are talking about contributions for the last 1000 years. To add to this, the region has significant tectonic activity with vertical land movements that exceed 2 mm/yr locally (based on GPS data). Combining isostatic and tectonic vertical land movement makes it more complicated to deconvolve the factors controlling the relative sea-level changes, which, in turn, requires higher precision SLIPs. In all fairness, I kind of struggle to see how the hydrodynamics works here although I know that the authors refer to other works but that requires from the reader/reviewer to do our own research. To finalize this section, I think that the analysis of the tectonic activity and GIA data along with other SLIPs is quite brief and would need further detail (if that is the goal of the paper). For instance, are all the SLIPs in Fig 11 located with enough proximity to each other that vertical land movements would allow direct comparison? As I said before, I think this is an interesting manuscript, but I really struggle with the potential use for sea-level studies.

That said, it really reminds me of works done by Cearreta and collaborators in the North of Spain in reclaimed coastal areas. I think the authors could refocus the manuscript that way. If they do so, I think that the micropaleontological and geochemical analysis would need to be a bit more detailed. I also think that the disagreement between the historical data and the older OSL sample need to be addressed more in depth. Considering that this is one single sample, it could be considered what could have affected the result, such as sediment mixing.

I am sorry that I am not being more supportive and I hope that the authors can revisit the manuscript and get the research published.

Reviewer #2: This is a very interesting manuscript, but despite the abundance of data it does not provide a conclusive interpretation. It is a manuscript based on sedimentological and paleontological (foraminifera and ostracods) description of three sediment cores. Unfortunately, the discussion is not based on interpretations of the data obtained from the cores.

Therefore, the foraminifera, geochemical data, and ostracods are an important source of information that need more attention and better interpolation in the text. The interpretation of the conditions in the saltpans is speculative.

The whole story is based on representatives of the genus Ammonia. For some species, such as A. veneta or A. parkinsoniana, the fact that they are euryhaline, for authors, is very important and has been emphasized several times to obtain more saline conditions. But euryhaline species in themselves are characterized by covering a wide range of salinity. To be consistent with their interpretation, they referred to work in which species were abundant in saline environments and failed to say anything about ammonias from the eastern Adriatic and their distribution in brackish water (the paragraph needs to be better referenced).

Why were changes in foraminifera composition not used to show changes in saline areas (Supplementary data 1)? There is no biodiversity or ecological indices (studying of aliquots of 50 specimens?) to suggest that conditions have become more severe.

Why did the authors use the term dead foraminifera? What types of foraminifera can we find in historical material?

The same problem that data from ostracod assemblages are not considered.

The geochemical data as tracers for identification of a terrestrial: line 455 and man made reddish layer and line 471… potentially resulted from anthropogenic activities…

Specific remarks

Brunovic et al. have studied cores from the island of Cres (northern Adriatic not Dalmatian coast)

WORMS for taxonomic identification, and not Cimerman & Langer?

Reviewer #3: The manuscript is very interesting in approach and it furnishes multi-proxy data (sedimentological, paleontological and geochemical data) from substantially unexplored, Mediterranean sedimentary successions: man-made intertidal saltpans. I’ve also appreciated the use of OSL dating, which proved to be an efficient chronological method within these depositional contexts, deprived of organic remains.

The Authors highlight the novelty of this study mainly in terms of RSL reconstructions. I substantially agree, however I think that paleoenvironmental interpretations (upon which RSL data are based) needs to be improved.

My major comments are as follows:

• A solid paleoenvironmental interpretation of core units is necessary. Each unit is described (4. Results) but not interpreted, with the exception of the paved layer and the so called “euryhaline interval” (first part of the discussion). I suggest to better discuss all the paleoenvironmental phases identified within the studied succession (5.1.) before presenting the RSL inferences (5.2.): pre-saltworks interval; saltworks interval (including the paved layer and the “euryhaline layer”) and post-abandonment interval highlighting key features and differences.

• The Authors stated that they used salinity ecological groups, however in the main text they reported “coastal/lagoonal taxa” about foraminifers (e.g., line 311) and they referred to coastal taxa in Figures 4, 7. I think that this is confusing and the merging of different salinity groups determines a loss of information. Moreover, I wonder which is the meaning of the taxa highlighted in green in the supplementary data 1.

• The counted shells/valves are generally low, I suggest to take into consideration/discuss this issue and to highlight the smallest samples (<50).

• Lines 517-518: from which core sample the OSL age of 1215±175 CE has been obtained? This RSL index point is not clear to me.

Kind regards

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #3: No

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How can past sea level be evaluated from traces of anthropogenic layers in ancient saltpans?

PONE-D-23-07685R1

Dear Dr. Bechor,

We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements.

Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication.

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Kind regards,

Fabrizio Frontalini

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #3: All comments have been addressed

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2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #3: Yes

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3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #3: N/A

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4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #3: Yes

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5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #3: Yes

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6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #3: I read the revised version of the manuscript written by Bechor and colleagues, and I am satisfied with the performed modifications and responses to my comments. I think this new version of the manuscript is clearly improved and it is ready for final acceptance and publication.

kind regards

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Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #3: No

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