Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences

The Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences was first published in 1973 by the nonprofit publisher Annual Reviews.[2] The goal of the editorial committee was to produce critical review articles that condensed a large volume of research into a final product usable by students, specialists, and non-specialists.[3] In the late 1990s it began publishing materials electronically.[4] 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.[5]

The size of individual volumes has grown over time: the volumes published in 2000,[6] 2007,[7] 2012,[8] and 2013[9] 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.[10]

It defines its scope as covering significant developments in the field of planetary science, encompassing earth science. Specific subdisciplines included are climatology, environmental science, and the history of life.[11] Each volume begins with a prefatory chapter of the biography or autobiography of a notable scientist within the field.[12] As of 2019, Journal Citation Reports lists the journal's impact factor as 9.089, ranking it fourth of 200 journals in the category "Geosciences, Multidisciplinary" and fifth of 68 in "Astronomy and Astrophysics".[1] It is abstracted and indexed in Scopus, Science Citation Index Expanded, CAB Abstracts, INSPEC, and Academic Search, among others.[13]

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.[14] Unsolicited manuscripts are not accepted. Peer review of accepted manuscripts is undertaken by the editorial committee.[15]

• List of scientific journals in earth and atmospheric sciences