The Bulletin of the Geological Society of Malaysia (ISSN 0126-6187; e-ISSN 2637-109X) first published in 1967, is a peer-reviewed open access interdisciplinary journal which publishes Earth Science research that addresses not only trending research areas but also multidisciplinary application topics. The scope of published articles covers engineering geology, environmental geology, geochemistry, geomorphology, geophysics, hydrogeology, mining geology, paleontology, petroleum geology, regional geology, sedimentology, stratigraphy, structural geology and tectonics.

The Bulletin supports researchers primarily focusing on Asia/SE Asia, but is not limited to this region, and publishes research papers of both scientific and technical nature that are of current interest and have potential impact on activities such as oil & gas exploration, mining, environmental issues, earthquakes, hazard assessment, disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation. The Bulletin also promotes geological interest on subjects of a conservation nature such as geo heritage and geo tourism.

All articles in the Bulletin are open access articles and are distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) License 4.0. The original author(s) are the copyright owner of articles. The use, distribution or reproduction in other forms is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this Bulletin is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

The Bulletin is published twice a year (May and November) by the Geological Society of Malaysia (GSM). All papers will be subjected to a double-blind review by two or more reviewers. Generally, the review process will take two months and one month will be allocated for corrections. Once accepted, the corresponding author will be informed within a month from the receipt of the revised manuscript. Those interested in submitting a manuscript should first read the Instruction to Authors.

GSM is committed to upholding standards of ethical behaviour at all stages of the publication process (see Publication Ethics) and we recommend the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) Best Practice Guidelines.

Authors can self-archive all versions of their work in their own web pages, institutional web pages, and another repository.

The Bulletin is indexed in the following abstracting and indexing services and databases: Scopus, AAPG Datapages and MyJurnal/MyCite. 

All correspondence pertaining to publication should be addressed to:

The Editor,

Geological Society of Malaysia

c/o Department of Geology, University of Malaya

50603 Kuala Lumpur, MALAYSIA

Tel: 603-7957 7036 Fax: 603-7956 3900

Email: geologicalsociety@gmail.com/editor@gsm.org.my

1) Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement
The Geological Society of Malaysia (GSM) adheres strictly to internationally accepted publication ethical standards to guarantee excellence in its scientific publications – Bulletin of the Geological Society of Malaysia and Warta Geologi. GSM employs peer review process to validate the integrity and novelty of the research work to increases the quality of research submitted for publication. After receipt of reviewers’ comments on an article, the Editor decides as to its acceptance or amendment or rejection. If the article is positively commented by the reviewers and recommended for its acceptance by the Editor, the authors are communicated regarding the same to further complete the prescribed formalities of copyright declaration. Upon completion of all the prescribed formalities, the authors are issued final acceptance for their manuscripts and it will then be published in the upcoming journal issue.

The Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidelines on publication ethics is adopted by GSM to ensure the rules of good scientific is practiced. The reviewers and editors of the journal are highly expected to comply with the code of conduct for Journal Editors and Guidelines for Peer Reviewers as prescribed by COPE.

a) Duties / Responsibilities of Authors
•    Submitted manuscripts must be the original work of the author(s); does not contain fabricated or falsified data or results;
•    The authors submitting their manuscripts to GSM are strongly recommended to adhere to the GSM Publication Guidelines for final submission of the manuscript;
•    Only unpublished manuscripts should be submitted;
•    Manuscript (or substantial sections from the manuscript) submitted to GSM is not already under consideration by another journal, or vice-versa;
•    Any conflict of interest must be clearly stated;
•    The sources of data used in the development of the manuscript is acknowledged; copying from someone else’s manuscript, or even one of the author’s own that has previously been published, without proper citation is considered as plagiarism;
•    All errors discovered in the manuscript after submission must be swiftly communicated to the Editor;
•    All listed authors must have made a significant scientific contribution to the research in the manuscript and therefore share collective responsibility and accountability for the results. Submitting authors should provide assurance that all authors included on a paper fulfil the criteria of authorship. We also ask for assurance that there is no one else who fulfils the criteria that has been excluded as an author;
•    Significant scientific contribution, including students, laboratory technicians as well as the reviewers, must be acknowledged.

b) Duties / Responsibilities of Editor and Editorial Board Members
•    All manuscripts are evaluated in fairness based on the intellectual content of the paper regardless of gender, race, ethnicity, religion, or political values of authors;
•    Information pertaining to manuscripts are kept confidential;
•    Any observed conflict of interest pertaining to manuscripts must be disclosed;
•    Editorial Board takes responsibility for making publication decisions for submitted manuscripts based on the reviewer’s evaluation of the manuscript, policies of the journal, editorial board and legal restrain acting against plagiarism, libel and copyright infringement. •    Editors shall conduct proper and fair investigation into ethical complaints.

c) Responsibilities of Reviewers
Reviewers are expected to evaluate a manuscript for critical analysis, comparative analysis and most importantly for integrity and novelty of the research work.  As such, reviewers must confirm the following; that:
•    All manuscripts are reviewed in fairness based on the intellectual content of the article regardless of gender, race, ethnicity, religion, citizenry nor political values of author(s);
•    Any observed conflict of interest during the review process must be communicated to the Editor;
•    All information pertaining to the manuscript is kept confidential;
•    Any information that may be the reason for the rejection of publication of a manuscript must be communicated to the Editor.

d) Responsibility of Publisher
In cases of alleged or proven scientific misconduct, fraudulent publication or plagiarism, the publisher, in close collaboration with the Editor, will take all appropriate measures to clarify the situation and to amend the article in question. This includes the prompt publication of an erratum or, in the most severe cases, the complete retraction of the affected work. The publisher and the Journal do not discriminate on the basis of age, religion, disability, marital status, national origin, race or gender in its publishing programs, services and activities.

2) Appeals & Complaints
GSM journals follow Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidelines on appeals to journal editor decisions and complaints about a journal’s editorial management of the peer review process. In cases where an author wishes to complaint or has an issue with the review process, the matter should be directly emailed to geologicalsociety@gmail.com and will be dealt with confidentially.

3) Corrections to Published Work
Authors should inform the editorial office of any errors of fact they have noticed (or have been informed of) in their article once published. Corrections are made at the Publisher’s discretion. If the article has already appeared in an issue, a correction notice will be printed in the next available print issue, while for the online version of the article, the Publisher will consider replacing this version with an updated version which corrects the error.

4) Conflict of Interests / Competing Interests
Declaration of all potential conflicts of interest is required by GSM as this is an integral aspect of a transparent record of scientific work.
If there are no competing interests in their submitted manuscripts, authors should state so explicitly: “The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.” This statement should come prior to the references.
If there are possible conflicts of interest, authors must state what competing interests are relevant to the submitted work.

5) Data Sharing
Authors are encouraged to share or make available any data and materials supporting the results or analyses presented in their paper.
Please note that data should only be shared if it is ethically correct to do so, where this does not violate the protection of human subjects, or other valid ethical, privacy, or security concerns.

Editor
Joy Jacqueline Pereira (Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Malaysia) ScopusID

Assistant Editor
Baba Musta (Universiti Malaysia Sabah, Malaysia) ScopusID
Meor Hakif Amir Hassan (University of Malaya, Malaysia) ScopusID
Mohammed Hail Hakimi (Taiz University, Yemen) ScopusID

Editorial Board
1  Alfredo Lagmay (University of the Philippines, The Philippines) ScopusID
2  Azman A. Ghani (University of Malaya, Malaysia) ScopusID
3  Felix Tongkul (Universiti Malaysia Sabah, Malaysia) ScopusID
4  Harry Doust (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, The Netherlands) ScopusID
5  Ian Metcalfe (University of New England, Australia) ScopusID
6  Ibrahim Komoo (Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Malaysia) ScopusID
7  Ng Tham Fatt (University of Malaya, Malaysia) ScopusID
8  Peter R. Parham (Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Malaysia) ScopusID
9  Rajib Shaw (Keio University, Japan) ScopusID
10  Robert Hall (University of London, United Kingdom) ScopusID

Editorial Manager
Lim Choun Sian (Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Malaysia) ScopusID

Production Editorial Manager
Elvaene James (Universiti Kelantan Malaysia, Malaysia)
Muhammad Hatta Roselee (University of Malaya, Malaysia)

Secretariat
Anna Lee
Athirah
Wan Aida Wan Zahari