I have read the referee comments and the authors replies to them as well as the links to the initial stage of the manuscript and find that both referees expressed their suggestions and concerns in a fair and constructive way. Likewise, the replies to those comments are constructive and headed towards solving the raised points. I suggest the authors to revise their manuscript according to their suggestions and it evaluated by the referees, again.

Regarding comments by referee 1, the change of title seems justified. I also see that the manuscript aligns well with the "Short Communication" scope of the journal. The suggested expansion of contextual information would be helpful as short "onboarding" in the introduction or, maybe, the discussion. This needs to be evaluated after it has been implemented. The suggested actions to the line by line comments appear appropriate to me and I look forward to seeing the updated version of the manuscript in due course.

Regarding comments by referee 2, I see that a large portion of the discourse arises from different perspectives on the same topic, which usually means that the clarity of the text needs to be improved in order to resolve misunderstandings from the beginning. I suggest to add clear statements about boundary conditions, assumptions and propositions early on (e.g., proposed subjectivity of visual inspection, non-unique sources for similar distribution patterns, etc.), to set the right expectation space for future readers. I would welcome a slightly more profound reevaluation of pros and cons as suggested by referee(s) and authors. In addition, it may help to clearly discuss the extreme endmember states of data and how the metrics behave for those, but also to discuss how the space in between such endmember states affects the KS and W2 results. I agree that the table 1 is of limited value in its current form. Perhaps replacing it by a 1-3 sentence verbal (and referenced) description of the geological context would be a useful way to provide the required background. I would encourage the authors to briefly add the the information on minimum sample size explicitly, to clarify that this has not been overlooked.

Overall, I am convinced that the required changes can be implemented and look forward to an updated version of the manuscript.


Kind regards,

Michael Dietze

I have read the updated manuscript and the referee's letters. I believe that accounting for the one remaining issue of referee #1 and fixing the few remaining issues will move the manuscript to a state where it will become a valuable contribution to the journal's portfolio.

Thanks for resubmitting a thoroughly revised and improved manuscript taking into account the competent and extensive suggestions provided by the two reviewers. I am very pleased with the revised manuscript and suggest acceptance of the manuscript. It is ready for publication!
Thanks for considering GEOCHRONOLOGY to publish your work.
With kind regards
Klaus Mezger