Scope of publication
First Break covers the fields of applied geophysics, petroleum geoscience and reservoir engineering. The contents range from refereed technical articles to invited or independently submitted contributions of special interest to the communities served by First Break as well as more news oriented features. Guidance to authors here refers principally to submissions of refereed technical articles, but the style points are relevant to all material offered for publication. As a general rule, articles should be readable, informative, interesting and succinct. Authors are encouraged to keep their articles to around 3000 words in length plus illustrations, with a maximum of 4500 words including the list of references and text in figure captions.
Submitting Technical Articles online
Technical articles for First Break subject to the full refereeing process should, whenever possible, be submitted via: EAGE’s ScholarOne website. This allows the progress of the article to be tracked at all stages by those involved in the publication process, i.e., authors, editors and referees, and ensures a more rapid turnaround from submission to publication. Submission of a paper implies transfer of copyright to EAGE and that the paper is not under consideration elsewhere.
Authors submitting for the first time will have to create an account before logging in. The site offers a Help section and User Guide. There is a 500 MB limit on the total size of files submitted. Authors unable to meet this limit should contact the Editorial Office. Top quality (high resolution) graphics needed at the publishing stage are not necessary for the review process: ‘screen-optimized’ images are sufficient. There is also no need to send a disk with the initial submission of an article to be considered for publication.
Submitting Special Topic articles, features and news items
Contributions offered to First Break for which the ScholarOne system is not required, such as invited special topic articles, features, news items, etc., should in the first instance be sent by e-mail to the coordinator First Break (editorfb@eage.org).
Our Special Topic agenda for 2024:
Our Special Topic agenda for 2025:
All requirements specified below regarding text and figure quality do, however, also apply for these articles.
Copyright and sharing
Corresponding authors will receive a watermarked PDF of the final version of their article. EAGE allows authors to share this PDF for personal use, or within the authors’ company or institution. The copyright of articles published in First Break lies with EAGE. It is not allowed to distribute your article on any company website, public website or use it for other commercial purposes without permission.
Permission to publish the final article for commercial use can be obtained from EAGE. A licensing fee may apply. For more information please contact the editorial office at firstbreak@eage.org.
Preparation of material
The text of every article submitted to First Break electronically should be prepared as a Microsoft Word document unless otherwise agreed. British English is the standard language. Extensive mathematics should be avoided. Units referred to in the text should always be given according to the Système Internationale (SI). Exceptions may be allowed, at the discretion of the Editor, for example when data have been recorded in different units. In such cases, the values in SI units should be given immediately afterwards, enclosed in parentheses.
Technical articles to be refereed should include a title page, abstract, the main text, a list of references, a list of figure captions, the figures, and any tables (tables in Excel or Word). Figures should be supplied as separate files, but the text can also include the figures as position indicators. It is important that authors suggest optimum positions for figures and tables even though lay-out considerations may necessitate some changes. Each table should be typed double-spaced on a separate sheet and should be accompanied by an appropriate caption. Only horizontal rules should be used; one above and one below the column headings, and one at the table foot. All abbreviations should be clearly explained in a footnote.
Each submission should contain a separate title page giving the title, names of authors (forenames and surnames are required for authors of special topic articles and features) with their full postal addresses, and an e-mail address for the corresponding author to whom proofs will be sent.
Abstracts
The abstract should be a summary of the content that contains the essential information in the article. The maximum permitted length is 200 words. Its main purpose is for the convenience of the reader, and it should be intelligible without reference to the article. A recommended recipe for the abstract is to include one or two sentences on each of the following: scope and objectives of the work described, methods used, results obtained, and conclusions.
References
Citation of references in the text should be as follows: ‘Anderson and Doyle (1990) suggested…in the Vøring Basin (Planke et al. 2005)’. When reference is made to a work by three or more authors, the first name followed by ‘et al.’ should be used. Published abstracts should be cited in the same way as published papers, but denoted as abstracts in the reference list. References to unpublished papers are not permitted in the list but may be given in the text (as ‘unpubl. results’ or ‘pers. comm.’).
References should be listed alphabetically at the end of the manuscript and must be complete, including names and initials of all authors, year of publication, title of paper referred to, journal name in full, volume, and first and last page numbers. In volumes 1-4 of First Break and from volume 20 onwards, each issue is paginated individually, so it is necessary to give the issue number in parentheses after the volume (cf. first and second examples below). This is also necessary for other journals in which issues are paginated individually.
Andersen, C. and Doyle, C. [1990]. Review of hydrocarbon exploration and production in Denmark. First Break, 8, 155-165.
Chopra, S. and Marfurt, K.J. [2007]. Volumetric curvature attributes for fault/fracture characterization. First Break, 25(7), 35-46.
Leaney, W.S. and Hornby, B.E. [2007]. Depth-dependent anisotropy from sub-salt walkaway VSP data. 69th EAGE Conference & Exhibition, Extended Abstracts, H011.
North, F.K. [1985]. Petroleum Geology. Allen & Unwin, Boston.
Planke, S., Rasmussen, T., Rey, S.S. and Myklebust, R. [2005]. Seismic characteristics and distribution of volcanic intrusions and hydrothermal vent complexes in the Vøring and Møre basins. In: Doré, A.G. and Vining, B. (Eds.) Petroleum Geology: North-West Europe and Global Perspectives – Proceedings of the 6th Petroleum Geology Conference. Geological Society, London, 833-844.
Thomas, S. [1987]. Interactive fault interpretation and mapping. Geophysics, 52, 704 (Abstract).
Illustrations
Top quality, high resolution graphics and images are needed in digital form at the publishing stage. Please send the original files whenever possible because they tend to have the highest resolution. We prefer contributors to save vector graphics (e.g., line artwork/diagrams) in EPS format or as high resolution PDFs. Please export graphics generated in MS Office applications (Word, Excel) as high resolution PDFs. Bitmap files (e.g., photos and screen dumps) should be saved in TIFF format. To guarantee a good printed result, the bitmap (TIFF) files need to be at least 300 dpi for reproduction at 100% publication size. For technical articles, the standard figure widths are 83 mm (single column) and 170 mm (full page). For figures in EAGE news/news/technology features, the standard figure widths are 54 mm, 112 mm and 170 mm.
Powerpoint files (PPT)
In addition to delivering the original Powerpoint files please:
– either convert PPT files to high resolution PDF files (300 dpi),
– or convert files to Photoshop JPEG/TIFF/PSD/EPS in 300 dpi for reproduction at 100% publication size.
Illustrator files (EPS/PDF/AI)
In order to prevent font conversion errors, the font for letters and numbers should be converted to outlines. (Open Illustrator – select ‘all content’ – go to ‘type’ – select ‘create outlines’ – save).
Photoshop files (JPEG/JPG/TIFF/PSD/BMP/EPS)
To check and/or change resolution/size, open Photoshop – go to ‘image’ – select ‘image size’ – check if image is 300 pixels/inch.
– If image resolution is below 300 pixels/inch, go to ‘image’ – select ‘image size – make sure that ‘scale styles’ and ‘constrain proportions’ are ‘on’ and ‘resample image’ is ‘off’. Type in ‘300 pixels/inch’. The image size (in millimetres) at 300 dpi should now be shown.
– When the image resolution is 300 pixels/inch, please check its size in millimetres: for technical articles the minimum image width should be 83 mm.
Approximate sizes of high resolution images are as follows:
– 1 column width, landscape image: 400 KB JPG, 2 MB TIFF.
– 1 column width, portrait image: 500 KB JPG, 4 MB TIFF.
– 2 column width, landscape image: 800 KB JPG, 8 MB TIFF.
Tip on PDF files
You can get an impression of the press quality of a PDF file by zooming in to 300%.
Images from websites
Please note that images extracted from websites are generally not suitable for publication.
Large files
In case of difficulty in submitting large files, authors should contact the First Break coordinator by e-mail: firstbreakproduction@eage.org.
Final word of advice
If in doubt, please send the original files.