PONE-D-24-40516A multiscale comprehensive index for evaluating the development level of surface granite discontinuitiesPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Liu,

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Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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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: Yes

Reviewer #2: Partly

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: No

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3. 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 #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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4. 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 #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: 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:  The manuscript presents a novel Multiscale Discontinuity Comprehensive (MDC) index for assessing the development level of surface granite discontinuities, which is crucial for the geological disposal of high-level radioactive waste. The study's focus on the Gansu Beishan area, a preselected candidate site for such a repository in China, adds regional significance. The topic is interesting, and this manuscript has a certain degree of innovation; however, some revisions are needed before it can be considered for publication. The detailed comments and suggestions are given as follows:

(1) Why is there a need to propose such a new metric? The explanation is not sufficiently clear.

(2) Figure 9 is missing a legend.

(3) Why is Eq. (5) used to express the new index in this form? Please further explain.

(4) To be frank, the details and depth of analysis in the paper are insufficient. It is recommended to strengthen these aspects further.

(5) “Based on the characteristics of the fault mud observed on the wall of the exploratory trench (Figure 4), the fault's formation was deduced, and its spatial extension was traced and investigated using remote sensing maps and GPS to determine its development scale.” →“Based on the characteristics of the fault mud observed on the wall of the exploratory trench (Figure 4), the formation of the fault was deduced, and its spatial extension was traced and investigated using remote sensing maps and GPS to determine the scale of its development.”

(6) “FIGURE10 Stress state of joint” → “FIGURE 10: Stress State of Joints”

(7) Several key related papers should be considered for inclusion: (1) http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.enggeo.2016.03.007; and (2) https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enggeo.2018.04.013

Reviewer #2:  Dear Editor,

I appreciate the opportunity to review the manuscript titled "A multiscale comprehensive index for evaluating the development level of surface granite discontinuities," which was submitted to PLOS ONE. This manuscript aims to propose a index to estimate the develop level of the granite rock surface. The topics is of considerable interest to the scientific community and I hope that after the review, the authors will be able to resubmit the work. However, the logic of the manuscript is somewhat disorganized, and there are several language problems.

Here are some of my suggestions that I hope will help authors improve their manuscript.

1.I would like you to make a language edit. This is to improve the written English. It is mainly correct. However, there are strange phrases and technical terms used throughout the paper.

2.The authors are suggested to provide more information about the geological settings of the study area.

3.The quality of all the figures is required to be improved. For example, add scale and legends in fig.1.

4.The rock discontinuity is 3D geometry issue.“Introduction” must be literature review revised to be more in-depth and informative, with particular attention to other articles concerning similar approaches and other techniques used in literature with laser scanning; I permit to suggest some article, please see: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00603-021-02748-w; https://doi.org/10.1007/s10706-020-01203-x

5.There are too many of figures, please remove the non-necessary figures or merge several figures to one figure, i.g., Figs. 5-7.

6.Please give more details about the field surveys in the manuscript, and it is a good way to show the photos for data collection in the field.

Best regards,

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

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A multiscale comprehensive index for evaluating the development level of surface granite discontinuities

PONE-D-24-40516R1

Dear Dr. Liu,

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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If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to help maximize its impact. If they’ll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org.

Kind regards,

Fabio Trippetta, Ph.D.

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 #1: All comments have been addressed

Reviewer #2: 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 #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

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 #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: 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 #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

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 #1: (No Response)

Reviewer #2: First of all, thanks editors very much to invite me again to review the revised version of the manuscript. After checking the revised manuscript, I would like to say that all of my concerns have been addressed by the authors, and the current version of manuscript can be considered acceptable.

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7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean? ). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

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 #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

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