An Erratum (plural Errata) is a (very) short manuscript which may be published in Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta to correct a mistake made in a prior contribution, generally an Article, previously published in GCA. Usually the Erratum is signed by the original authors (or a subset of them), but it may also be "signed" by the Executive Editor or the Production Manager. An Erratum should consist of brief text describing the error and supplying corrected text, table(s) and/or figure(s), as appropriate for the given case.

In this context a "mistake" is something pretty specific: A wrong number got printed, or the wrong sign in an equation, or a crucial sample was misidentified, etc. If you change your mind about an interpretation, or have afterthoughts about something you should have said but didn't, that is not grounds for an Erratum (you could always try writing another paper).

If the mistake was made by the editorial office, the copyeditor or the printer, we will generally print the Erratum. In most cases we will also print the Erratum if the mistake was made by the original authors. Errata should be confined to cases of significant mistakes that are likely to lead to confusion if not corrected, however; they should not be used to correct minor typographical errors that are unlikely to create confusion or mislead the readers of the original paper. The decision on whether to print an erratum lies with the Executive Editor. Errata are generally not reviewed for scientific content, but they may be reviewed at the discretion of the Executive Editor.

Errata should be submitted to the editorial office in the same way as any other manuscript, but identified as such in an accompanying cover letter. The title of an Erratum, and the way in which it is signed, should follow special format guidelines: For an example see the attached example file (PDF format) or consult recent issues of the journal.

When an Erratum is published, the TOC (Table of Contents) entry for the Erratum in the electronic edition of GCA on the Elsevier website will contain a link to the original Article which the Erratum corrects. In addition, a link to the Erratum will be added to the TOC entry of the original Article, so that readers examining the Article will be informed that there is an Erratum to it.

In most cases it will be possible to generate a new pdf file based on the pdf file for the original publication of the paper, but corrected for whatever mistake(s) required the erratum. This pdf file will include a notice that it is a "corrected" file, so that it is not confused with the file for the original publication, but it will otherwise be suitable for distribution as an electronic reprint or for printing to provide hardcopy reprints. This file will be made available as an electronic annex to the erratum. Authors are advised to insert a callout to the annex file which will be used to create a link to the posted file. As an example of a satisfactory way to do this, the last sentence/paragraph in the erratum could be "A corrected pdf file for the entire article is provided as an electronic annex to this erratum".