Journal of the Palaeontological Society of India
The Palaeontological Society of India is a corporate member of the International Palaeontological Association (IPA) and a member of the Federation of Indian Geosciences Associations (FIGA). The Society is instrumental in the organization of scientific meetings, conferences, and field workshops on topics of contemporary issues in geology and palaeontology. Its main activities are the publication of the Journal of the Palaeontological Society of India, Field Guide Books, Catalogues, Monographs, Atlas, Special Publications, and other Miscellaneous Publications.
The Journal of the Palaeontological Society of India (JPSI) is a “peer-reviewed open-access journal”. JPSI follows a double-anonymized peer review policy devoted to the publication of original papers and reviews articles dealing with all aspects of Palaeontology, Palaeobotany, Stratigraphy, Geochronology, Pre-history, book reviews, conference proceedings, and reports. Interdisciplinary studies from allied aspects are also considered for publication. It is open to the entire palaeontological fraternity and encourages submissions from different regions of the world. There is no discrimination for consideration of manuscripts on the basis of region, colour, cast, and creed of the corresponding authors. The author(s) shall follow the guidelines, format & style given in the Submission Guidelines.
| Mukund Sharma | Formerly, Birbal Sahni Institute of Palaeosciences, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India |
| Anju Saxena | Birbal Sahni Institute of Palaeosciences, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India |
| Shyam Kishore | Rajat P. G. College, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India |
| Hema Achuythan | Anna University, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India |
| Sunil Bajpai | Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee, Uttarakhand, India |
| D M Banerjee | University of Delhi, India |
| O N Bhargava | Panjab University, Chandigarh, India |
| Zhou Chuanming | Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology, Nanjing, China |
| Christopher Cleal | University of Bristol, UK |
| Shreerup Goswami | Utkal University, Bhubaneshwar, Odisha, India |
| Anil K Gupta | Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, West Bengal, India |
| Nigel Hughes | University of California, Riverside, USA |
| J S Kharakwal | JRN Rajasthan Vidyapeeth, Rajasthan, India |
| Neloy Khare | Ministry of Earth Sciences, New Delhi, India |
| Ashu Khosala | Panjab University, Chandigarh, India |
| Subhas C Khosla | M.L.S. University, Udaipur, Rajasthan, India |
| Steven R Manchester | Florida Museum of Natural History, USA |
| R C Mehrotra | Birbal Sahni Institute of Palaeosciences, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India |
| Rajiv Nigam | Formerly, CSIR National Institute of Oceanography, Goa, India |
| Dhirendra Kumar Pandey | Central University of South Bihar, Bihar, India |
| S K Parcha | Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology, Dehradun, India |
| Rajeev Patnaik | Panjab University, Chandigarh, India |
| David Grimaldi | American Museum of Natural History, New York, USA |
| Anil K Pokharia | Birbal Sahni Institute of Palaeosciences, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India |
| G V R Prasad | University of Delhi, Delhi, India |
| Vandana Prasad | Birbal Sahni Institute of Palaeosciences, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India |
| Ashok Sahni | Panjab University, Chandigarh, India |
| Rajeev Saraswat | CSIR - National Institute of Oceanography, Goa, India |
| Vasant Shinde | CSIR Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, Hyderabad, India |
| Shiv Mohan Singh | Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, India |
| Devesh Sinha | University of Delhi, India |
| Pradeep Srivastava | Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee, Uttarakhand, India |
| Shuhai Xiao | Virginia Tech, USA |
Journal of the Palaeontological Society of India is hosted on Sage Track Sage; a web based online submission and peer review system. Please read the Manuscript Submission Guidelines below, and then visit https://peerreview.sagepub.com/jpi to login and submit your article online. Please note that manuscripts not conforming to the guidelines may be returned.
Remember you can log in to the submission site at any time to check on the progress of your paper through the peer review process.
Only manuscripts of sufficient quality that meet the aims and scope of Journal of the Palaeontological Society of India will be reviewed. As part of the submission will be required to warrant that you are submitting your original work, that you have the rights in the work, that you are submitting the work for first publication in the Journal and that it is not being considered for publication elsewhere and has not already been published elsewhere, and that you have obtained and can supply all necessary permissions for the reproduction of any copyright works not owned by you.
1. Open Access
2, Article Processing Charge (APC)
3.1 Aims & Scope
3.2 Article types
3.3 Writing your paper
3.3.1 Making your article discoverable
4.1 Peer review policy
4.2 Authorship
4.3 Acknowledgements
4.3.1 Writing assistance
4.4 Funding
4.5 Declaration of conflicting interests
4.6 Research data
5.1 Publication ethics
5.1.1 Plagiarism
5.1.2 Prior publication
5.2 Contributor’s publishing agreement
6.1 Formatting
6.2 Artwork, figures and other graphics
6.3 Supplemental material
6.4 Reference style
7.1 How to submit your manuscript
7.2 Title, keywords and abstracts
7.3 Information required for completing your submission
7.4 ORCID
7.5 Permissions
8. On acceptance and publication
8.1 Sage Production
8.2 Online First publication
8.3 Promoting your article
Journal of the Palaeontological Society of India is an open access, double-anonymize peer-reviewed journal. Each article accepted by peer review is made freely available online immediately upon publication, is published under a Creative Commons license and will be hosted online in perpetuity.
For general information on open access at Sage, please visit the Open Access page or view our Open Access FAQs.
2. Article Processing Charge (APC)
If, after peer review, your manuscript is accepted for publication, a one-time article processing charge (APC) is payable. This APC covers the cost of publication and ensures that your article will be freely available online in perpetuity under a Creative Commons license.
The article processing charge (APC) for this journal is INR 20000 for India and $ 1200 plus taxes for the rest of the world.
The article processing charge (APC) is payable when a manuscript is accepted after peer review, before it is published. The APC is subject to taxes where applicable. Tax-exempt status can be indicated by providing appropriate registration numbers when payment is requested. The Palaeontological Society of India and Sage help support those authors with no funding access for APC. For details see Sage Website. Please see further details here.
Before submitting your manuscript to Journal of the Palaeontological Society of India, please ensure you have read the Aims & Scope.
Journal of the Palaeontological Society of India publishes wide-ranging original research results, reviews and opinions aimed at increasing our understanding about the discipline of Palaeontology.
The Journal accepts papers such as original articles, reviews articles, memorial lecture’s review papers, commentaries, reports, obituaries, book reviews, express publication, Announcements of Conference or meeting.
The acceptable word limit for original article is 3000, review articles 5000 words, memorial lecture’s review 5000 words, commentaries 1500 words, reports and obituaries 1000 words, book reviews 800 words, express publication 1500 words, Announcements of Conference or meeting 400 words. Reports and obituaries, book reviews, and announcements of conferences or meetings do not fall within the ambit of APC.
Abstracts should be structured with not more than 300 to 500 words.
The Sage Author Gateway has some general advice on how to get published, plus links to further resources.
3.3.1 Make your article discoverable
For information and guidance on how to make your article more discoverable, visit our Gateway page on How to Help Readers Find Your Article Online.
Journal of the Palaeontological Society of India operates a strictly anonymized peer review process in which the reviewer’s name is withheld from the author and, the author’s name from the reviewer. The reviewer may at their own discretion opt to reveal their name to the author in their review but our standard policy practice is for both identities to remain concealed. Each manuscript is reviewed by at least two referees.
- All manuscripts are reviewed initially by the Editors and only those papers that meet the editorial standards of the journal, and fit within the aims and scope of the journal, will be sent for outside review.
- Decisions on manuscripts will be taken as rapidly as possible. Authors should expect to have reviewer’s comments within approximately (e.g.) 6-8 weeks. In general, Editors will seek advice from two or more expert reviewers about the content and presentation of submitted articles.
Papers should only be submitted for consideration once consent is given by all contributing authors. Those submitting papers should carefully check that all those whose work contributed to the paper are acknowledged as contributing authors.
The list of authors should include all those who can legitimately claim authorship. This is all those who:
- Made a substantial contribution to the concept or design of the work; or analysis or interpretation of data,
- Drafted the article or revised it critically for important intellectual content,
- Approved the version to be published,
- Each author should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for appropriate portions of the content.
Authors should meet the conditions of all of the points above. When a large group has conducted the work, the group should identify the individuals who accept direct responsibility for the manuscript. These individuals should fully meet the criteria for authorship.
Acquisition of funding, collection of data, or general supervision of the research does not constitute authorship, although all contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in the Acknowledgments section.
If the named authors for a manuscript change at any point between submission and acceptance, an Authorship Change Form must be completed and digitally signed by all authors (including any added or removed) . An addition of an author is only permitted following feedback raised during peer review. Completed forms can be uploaded at Revision Submission stage or emailed to the Journal Editorial Office contact (listed on the journal’s manuscript submission guidelines). All requests will be moderated by the Editor and/or Sage staff.
Important: Changes to the author by-line by adding or deleting authors are NOT permitted following acceptance of a paper.
Please note that AI chatbots, for example ChatGPT, should not be listed as authors. For more information see the policy on Use of ChatGPT and generative AI tools.
All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in an Acknowledgements section.
Please supply any personal acknowledgements separately to the main text to facilitate anonymous peer review.
4.3.1 Writing assistance
Individuals who provided assistance, e.g. communications company, do not qualify as authors and so should be included in the Acknowledgements section. Authors must disclose any writing assistance – including the individual’s name, company and level of input – and identify the entity that paid for this assistance. It is not necessary to disclose use of language polishing services.
Journal of the Palaeontological Society of India requires all authors to acknowledge their funding in a consistent fashion under a separate heading. Please visit the Funding Acknowledgements page on the Sage Journal Author Gateway to confirm the format of the acknowledgment text in the event of funding, or state that: This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.
4.5 Declaration of conflicting interests
Journal of the Palaeontological Society of India encourages authors to include a declaration of any conflicting interests and recommends you review the good practice guidelines on the Sage Journal Author Gateway.
It is the policy of Journal of the Palaeontological Society of India to require a declaration of conflicting interests from all authors, enabling a statement to be carried within the paginated pages of all published articles.
Please ensure that a ‘Declaration of Conflicting Interests’ statement is included at the end of your manuscript, after any acknowledgements and prior to the references. If no conflict exists, please state that ‘The Author(s) declare(s) that there is no conflict of interest’.
Authors need to include the author contribution section in their papers.
At Sage we are committed to facilitating openness, transparency and reproducibility of research. Where relevant, Journal of the Palaeontological Society of India encourages authors to share their research data in a suitable public to ethical considerations and to include a data accessibility statement in their manuscript file. Authors should also follow data citation principles. For more information, please visit the Return to Top
Sage is committed to upholding the integrity of the academic record. We encourage authors to refer to the Committee on Publication Ethics’ International Standards for Authors and view the Publication Ethics page on the Sage Author Gateway
Journal of the Palaeontological Society of India and Sage take issues of copyright infringement, plagiarism or other breaches of best practice in publication very seriously. We seek to protect the rights of our authors and we always investigate claims of plagiarism or misuse of published articles. Equally, we seek to protect the reputation of the journal against malpractice. Submitted articles may be checked with duplication-checking software. Where an article, for example, is found to have plagiarized other work or included third-party copyright material without permission or with insufficient acknowledgement, or where the authorship of the article is contested, we reserve the right to take action including, but not limited to: publishing an erratum or corrigendum (correction); retracting the article; taking up the matter with the head of department or dean of the author's institution and/or relevant academic bodies or societies; or taking appropriate legal action.
5.1.2 Prior publication
If material has been previously published, it is not generally acceptable for publication in a Sage journal. However, there are certain circumstances where previously published material can be considered for publication. Please refer to the guidance on the Sage Author Gateway or if in doubt, contact the Editor at the address given below.
5.2 Contributor’s publishing agreement
Before publication Sage requires the author as the rights holder to sign a Journal Contributor’s Publishing Agreement. Journal of the Palaeontological Society of India publishes manuscripts under Creative Commons licenses. The standard license for the journal is Creative Commons by Attribution Non-Commercial (CC BY-NC), which allows others to re-use the work without permission as long as the work is properly referenced and the use is non-commercial. For more information, you are advised to visit Sage’s OA licenses page. Alternative license arrangements are made available, for example, to meet particular funder mandates, at the author’s request.
The preferred format for your manuscript is WORD. Word and LaTex templates are available on the Manuscript Submission Guidelines page of our Author Gateway.
The manuscript should be structured as follows:
- All articles should be typed on one side of the paper (preferably A4) and double-spaced throughout (not only the text but also displayed quotations, notes, references and any other matter). Manuscripts should be submitted in MS Word format.
- Contributors must provide their affiliations and complete postal address and E-mail address with their manuscript. In case there are two or more authors, then the corresponding author’s name and address details must be specified clearly.
- All articles must be accompanied by an abstract of 500 words and five to six keywords.
- Endnotes should be used instead of footnotes, and should be numbered serially using standard figures (e.g., 1, 2, 3). The notes should be linked to the note cues within the text. Notes should contain more than a citation of a work. Use notes to elaborate an issue that is already made in the main text.
- The spellings used should be British (UK), with ‘s’ variant, e.g., globalisation instead of globalization, labour instead of labor.
- Use single quotes throughout. Double quotes to be used within double quotes. Spellings of words in quotations should not be changed. Quotations of 45 words or more should be separated from the text and indented with one space with a line space above and below.
- Use of italics and diacriticals should be minimized but consistent. For non-English and uncommon words and phrases, use italics throughout the text. Meaning of non-English words should be given in parenthesis just after the word when it is used for the first time.
- Use capitals sparingly and double-check the logical application of any distinctions you wish to make between specific and general use.
- Abbreviations are spelled out at first occurrence. Very common ones (US, GDP, BBC) need not be spelled out.
- Spell out numbers from one to nine, 10 and above to remain in figures. However, for exact measurements use only figures (3 km; 9%). Use thousands and millions, not lakhs and crores.
- Give specific dates in the form 22 November 1980. When referring to a century use words, e.g., ‘twentieth century’ and when reference is being made to a decade use numbers, e.g., ‘1980s’.
- Ibid should not be used.
- Number ranges should not be truncated, for example, 2017–2018.
- Tables and figures to be indicated by numbers separately (see Table 1), not by placement (see Table below). Short and crisp titles and headings in tables and figures are preferred. Present each table and figure on a separate sheet of paper, gathering them together at the end of article.
6.2 Artwork, figures and other graphics
For guidance on the preparation of illustrations, pictures and graphs in electronic format, please visit Sage’s Manuscript Submission Guidelines
Figures supplied in color will appear in color online.
This journal is able to host additional materials online (e.g. datasets, podcasts, videos, images etc) alongside the full-text of the article. For more information please refer to our guidelines on submitting supplemental files.
Journal of the Palaeontological Society of India adheres to the APA reference style. View the APA guidelines to ensure your manuscript conforms to this reference style.
7.1 How to submit your manuscript
Journal of the Palaeontological Society of India is hosted on Sage Track Sage; a web based online submission and peer review system. Please visit https://peerreview.sagepub.com/jpi to login and submit your article online.
IMPORTANT: Please check whether you already have an account in the system before trying to create a new one. If you have reviewed or authored for the journal in the past year it is likely that you will have had an account created.
7.2 Title, keywords and abstracts
Please supply a title, an abstract and keywords to accompany your article. The title, keywords and abstract are key to ensuring readers find your article online through online search engines such as Google. Please refer to the information and guidance on how best to title your article, write your abstract and select your keywords by visiting the Sage Journal Author Gateway for guidelines on How to Help Readers Find Your Article Online.
7.3 Information required for completing your submission
Provide full contact details for the corresponding author including email, mailing address and telephone numbers. Academic affiliations are required for all co-authors. These details should be presented separately to the main text of the article to facilitate anonymous peer review.
You will be asked to provide contact details and academic affiliations for all co-authors via the submission system and identify who is to be the corresponding author. These details must match what appears on your manuscript. At this ensure you have included all the required statements and declarations and uploaded any additional supplementary files (including reporting guidelines where relevant).
As part of our commitment to ensuring an ethical, transparent and fair peer review process Sage is a supporting member of ORCID, the Open Researcher and Contributor ID. ORCID provides a unique and persistent digital identifier that distinguishes researchers from every other researcher, even those who share the same name, and, through integration in key research workflows such as manuscript and grant submission, supports automated linkages between researchers and their professional activities, ensuring that their work is recognized.
The collection of ORCID IDs from corresponding authors is now part of the submission process of this Journal. If you already have an ORCID ID you will be asked to associate that to your submission during the online submission process. We also strongly encourage all co-authors to link their ORCID ID to their accounts in our online peer review platforms. It takes seconds to do: click the link when prompted, sign into your ORCID account and our systems are automatically updated. Your ORCID ID will become part of your accepted publication’s metadata, making your work attributable to you and only you. Your ORCID ID is published with your article so that fellow researchers reading your work can link to your ORCID profile and from there link to your other publications.
If you do not already have an ORCID ID please follow this link to create one or visit our ORCID homepage to learn more.
Please ensure that you have obtained any necessary permission from copyright holders for reproducing any illustrations, tables, figures or lengthy quotations previously published elsewhere. For further information including guidance on fair dealing for criticism and review, please see the Copyright and Permissions page on the Sage Author Gateway.
8. On acceptance and publication
If your paper is accepted for publication after peer review, you will first be asked to complete the contributor’s publishing agreement. Once your manuscript files have been checked for Sage Production, the corresponding author will be asked to pay the article processing charge (APC) via a payment link. Once the APC has been processed, your article will be prepared for publication and can appear online within an average of 30 days. Please note that no production work will occur on your paper until the APC has been received.
Your Sage Production Editor will keep you informed as to your article’s progress throughout the production process. Proofs will be made available to the corresponding author via email to the corresponding author and should be returned promptly. Authors are reminded to check their proofs carefully to confirm that all author information, including names, affiliations, sequence and contact details are correct, and that Funding and Conflict of Interest statements, if any, are accurate. Please note that if there are any changes to the author list at this stage all authors will be required to complete and sign a form authorizing the change.
Online First allows final articles (completed and approved articles awaiting assignment to a future issue) to be published online prior to their inclusion in a journal issue, which significantly reduces the lead time between submission and publication. Visit the Sage Journals help page for more details, including how to cite Online First articles.
Publication is not the end of the process! You can help disseminate your paper and ensure it is as widely read and cited as possible. The Sage Author Gateway has numerous resources to help you promote your work. Visit the Promote Your Article page on the Gateway for tips and advice.
Any correspondence, queries or additional requests for information on the Manuscript Submission process should be sent to the Journal of the Palaeontological Society of India editorial office as follows:
The Chief Editor,
Journal of the Palaeontological Society of India
Prof. Mukund Sharma
Email: mukund_sharma@bsip.res.in | sharmamukund1@rediffmail.com