''Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences'' is an annual peer-reviewed scientific journal published by Annual Reviews, which broadly covers

Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's surfa ...

and planetary sciences, including

geology Geology () is a branch of natural science concerned with Earth and other astronomical objects, the features or rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which they change over time. Modern geology significantly overlaps all other Ea ...

, atmospheric sciences, climate,

geophysics Geophysics () is a subject of natural science concerned with the physical processes and physical properties of the Earth and its surrounding space environment, and the use of quantitative methods for their analysis. The term ''geophysics'' so ...

, environmental science, geological hazards,

geodynamics Geodynamics is a subfield of geophysics dealing with dynamics of the Earth. It applies physics, chemistry and mathematics to the understanding of how mantle convection leads to plate tectonics and geologic phenomena such as seafloor spreading, mo ...

, planet formation, and solar system origins. The co-editors are Katherine H. Freeman ( Pennsylvania State University) and Raymond Jeanloz (

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

). As of 2022, ''

Journal Citation Reports ''Journal Citation Reports'' (''JCR'') is an annual publicationby Clarivate Analytics (previously the intellectual property of Thomson Reuters). It has been integrated with the Web of Science and is accessed from the Web of Science-Core Collec ...

'' gives the journal a 2021

impact factor The impact factor (IF) or journal impact factor (JIF) of an academic journal is a scientometric index calculated by Clarivate that reflects the yearly mean number of citations of articles published in the last two years in a given journal, as ...

of 16.304.

History

The ''Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences'' was first published in 1973 by the nonprofit publisher Annual Reviews. The goal of the editorial committee was to produce critical

review article A review article is an article that summarizes the current state of understanding on a topic within a certain discipline. A review article is generally considered a secondary source since it may analyze and discuss the method and conclusions i ...

s that condensed a large volume of research into a final product usable by students, specialists, and non-specialists. In the late 1990s it began publishing materials electronically. Format changes in 2006 included a simplification of the formatting, inclusion of definitions in the margins, more color, and expansion of supplementary materials, such as videos, in light of increasing access via the internet. The size of individual volumes has grown over time: the volumes published in 2000, 2007, 2012, and 2013 were each noted at time of publication to be the largest-ever volume produced by the journal by page count or number of articles. As of 2020, it was published both in print and electronically. Some of its articles are available online in advance of the volume's publication date.

Scope and indexing

It defines its scope as covering significant developments in the field of planetary science, encompassing earth science. Specific subdisciplines included are

climatology Climatology (from Greek , ''klima'', "place, zone"; and , ''-logia'') or climate science is the scientific study of Earth's climate, typically defined as weather conditions averaged over a period of at least 30 years. This modern field of study ...

, environmental science, and the

history of life The history of life on Earth traces the processes by which living and fossil organisms evolved, from the earliest emergence of life to present day. Earth formed about 4.5 billion years ago (abbreviated as ''Ga'', for ''gigaannum'') and evide ...

. Each volume begins with a prefatory chapter of the biography or autobiography of a notable scientist within the field. As of 2022, ''

'' lists the journal's

as 16.304, ranking it third of 201 journals in the category "Geosciences, Multidisciplinary" and fourth of 69 in "Astronomy and Astrophysics". It is

abstracted and indexed An abstracting service is a service that provides abstracts of publications, often on a subject or group of related subjects, usually on a subscription basis. An indexing service is a service that assigns descriptors and other kinds of access poin ...

Scopus Scopus is Elsevier's abstract and citation database launched in 2004. Scopus covers nearly 36,377 titles (22,794 active titles and 13,583 inactive titles) from approximately 11,678 publishers, of which 34,346 are peer-reviewed journals in top-l ...

, Science Citation Index Expanded, CAB Abstracts, INSPEC, and

Academic Search Academic Search is a monthly indexing service. It was first published in 1997 by EBSCO Publishing in Ipswich, Massachusetts. Its academic focus is international universities, covering social science, education, psychology, and other subjects. Pu ...

, among others.

Editorial processes

The ''Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences'' is helmed by the editor or the co-editors. The editor is assisted by the editorial committee, which includes associate editors, regular members, and occasionally guest editors. Guest members participate at the invitation of the editor, and serve terms of one year. All other members of the editorial committee are appointed by the Annual Reviews board of directors and serve five-year terms. The editorial committee determines which topics should be included in each volume and solicits reviews from qualified authors. Unsolicited manuscripts are not accepted.

Peer review Peer review is the evaluation of work by one or more people with similar competencies as the producers of the work ( peers). It functions as a form of self-regulation by qualified members of a profession within the relevant field. Peer revie ...

of accepted manuscripts is undertaken by the editorial committee.

Editors of volumes

Dates indicate publication years in which someone was credited as a lead editor or co-editor of a journal volume. The planning process for a volume begins well before the volume appears, so appointment to the position of lead editor generally occurred prior to the first year shown here. An editor who has retired or died may be credited as a lead editor of a volume that they helped to plan, even if it is published after their retirement or death. * Fred A. Donath (1973–1980) * George Wetherill (1981–1996) * Raymond Jeanloz (1997–2013) * Jeanloz and Katherine H. Freeman (2014–present)

Current editorial committee

As of 2022, the editorial committee consists of the co-editors and the following members: * Paul L. Koch *

Michael Manga Michael Manga (born July 22, 1968) is a Canadian-American geoscientist who is currently a professor at the University of California, Berkeley. Born in Hamilton, Ontario, Manga grew up in Ottawa. His father is a South African immigrant of Indian ...

* Galen A. McKinley * J. Taylor Perron *

Roberta Rudnick Roberta L. Rudnick (born 1958) is an American earth scientist and professor of geology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She was elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 2010 and was awarded the Dana Medal by the Min ...

References