Icarus is devoted to the publication of original contributions in the field of Solar System studies. Manuscripts reporting the results of new research--observational, experimental, or theoretical--concerning the astronomy, geology, meteorology, physics, chemistry, biology, and other scientific aspects of our Solar System or extrasolar systems are welcome. The journal generally does not publish papers devoted exclusively to the Sun, the Earth, celestial mechanics, meteoritics, or astrophysics. Icarus does not publish papers that provide "improved" versions of Bode's law, or other numerical relations, unless they are accompanied by some detailed physical/chemical arguments to explain why the new relation is to be preferred. Icarus does not publish meeting announcements or general notices. Reviews, historical papers, and manuscripts describing spacecraft instrumentation may be considered, but only with prior approval of the Editor. An entire issue of the journal is occasionally devoted to a single subject, usually arising from a conference on the same topic. The language of publication is English.

All papers are reviewed, generally by two independent referees. Authors will usually be asked to respond to criticisms and suggestions by the referees prior to publication; at the Editor's discretion, reviewers may be consulted about resubmitted manuscripts. Authors are invited to give recommendations pro or con about potential reviewers; the Editor may use these to guide the selection of referees. If authors so request in their cover letters, manuscripts will be handled anonymously during the refereeing process.

Manuscripts are accepted for review with the understanding that the same work has not been published, that it is not under consideration for publication elsewhere, and that its submission for publication has been approved by all of the authors and by the institution where the work was carried out. Furthermore, any person cited as the source of a personal communication should have approved such citation; in particular, written documentation must be sent when the manuscript is submitted if the personal communication is crucial to the arguments of the submitted paper, or critical of another's work, or controversial. For the benefit of the reviewers, three (3) copies of all significant references cited in the manuscript as submitted or in press must accompany the paper.

Authors submitting a manuscript do so on the understanding that if it is accepted for publication, copyright in the article, including the right to reproduce the article in all forms and media, shall be assigned exclusively to the Publisher. The Copyright Transfer Agreement should be signed by the appropriate person(s). Articles and any other material published in Icarus represent the opinions of the authors and should not be construed to reflect the opinions of the Editor or the Publisher.

There are no page charges. However, authors will be charged for color reproduction (see Color Figures section below) or foldout pages; the Publisher will provide an estimate of these costs.

Manuscript Submission

The Icarus Editorial Office prefers the electronic submission of manuscripts via our Web-based system ( http://icarus.cornell.edu/submit). Files will only be accepted in .doc (Microsoft Word for Mac or PC), .wpd (Corel WordPerfect for Mac or PC), .ps (PostScript), .pdf (Adobe), or .txt (plain ASCII text) formats and on US letter size paper (8.5 x 11 in.). The preferred format for fastest processing by the editorial office is a single PDF or PS file less than 10 Mbytes in size and containing all text, tables, and figures. Embedding figures within Word or WordPerfect documents is discouraged. Please note that if your manuscript is accepted for publication, the requirements for transmission of material to Elsevier are different and are outlined below.

Hard-copy submissions will be scanned into PDF format for incorporation into our Web-based review system, so authors are strongly encouraged to submit electronically to maintain the maximum fidelity of their images and text. If hard copies are submitted, four copies of the manuscripts, complete with figures, tables, etc., should be submitted to Icarus Editorial Office, 413 Space Sciences Building, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York 14853-6801, USA. Telephone: 607 255 4875, Fax: 607 255 6354. Electronic mail: icarus@astro.cornell.edu. Editorial Office Web site: http://icarus.cornell.edu.

Authors should retain an original copy of their manuscript. At least one set of figures should be of high quality and suitable for direct photographic reproduction. All manuscripts must be printed or typed with wide margins and double-spaced throughout, including references and footnotes. Number each page of the manuscript. Include on the first page the title of the paper and the name(s) and affiliation(s) of the author(s), including mailing address(es), telephone number(s), fax number(s), and electronic mail address(es). At the bottom of the first page note the number of manuscript pages, figures, and tables. On the second page indicate a proposed running head of not more than 55 characters, as well as the name and address to which editorial correspondence and proofs should be directed. The third page should contain a brief abstract. Two to five keywords (topics) taken from the journal's keyword index http://icarus.cornell.edu/information/keywords.html or found on the journal's home page should be listed immediately after the abstract. The text should begin on the following page. After the main text, give acknowledgments, appendixes, references, tables, figure captions, and figures, in that order. Places where figures and tables are to appear in the published paper should be marked in the margins of the manuscript.

Please write with attention to organization, style, and especially brevity. Present results logically, with order dictated by the needs of the reader. Take special care in composing the title and abstract, since these will be the most frequently read sections of the paper. In the title, specific words are preferable to general ones. The abstract should summarize the conclusions of the research, including quantitative results where appropriate, rather than merely stating the problem.

Authors in Japan kindly note: Upon request Elsevier Japan will provide a list of people who can check and improve the English of an article (before submission). Please contact our Tokyo office: Elsevier Japan K.K., 1-9-15 Higashi Azabu, Minato-ku, Tokyo 106-0044, Japan; tel.: +81-3-5561-5032; fax: +81-3-5561-5045; e-mail: jp.info@elsevier.com.

Whenever possible, quotients in mathematical expressions should employ the solidus (/) rather than being displayed in built-up form. However, for units, exponential notation is preferred (e.g., erg cm^-2 s^-1, not erg/cm² s).

Tables and Figures

When described in the body of the text, a table should be referred to as Table X, an equation as Eq. Y, and a figure as Fig. Z (use these abbreviations everywhere except at the beginning of a sentence).

Tables are numbered consecutively with Arabic numerals in order of their citation in the text. Each table should be typed, single-spaced, on a separate sheet with due regard to the proportions of the printed page. All tables should bear appropriate headings. Unusually elaborate or long tables should be prepared as camera-ready copy.

Figures. At the time of submission of the manuscript, a high-quality original of each figure suitable for direct photographic reproduction in the published paper must be supplied. High-quality laser-printed figures are acceptable, as well as photographs or pen-and-ink drawings. Lettering on the figures should be of professional quality and should be large enough to be legible after reduction to fit the journal page. Each figure should be identified with the author's name and figure number. All figures, whether line designs or halftones, should be numbered consecutively in Arabic numerals, in order of their citation in the text. Figure captions should be typewritten on a separate sheet, following the text.

Color Illustrations

Color illustrations will be accepted; however, the authors will be expected to make a contribution toward the extra cost. Please note that these prices are subject to change, but the prices quoted at the time of acceptance will remain in effect until the paper is published. Color should preferably be done in CYMK and sent as both an electronic file and a hard copy.

Color reproduction of figures in the electronic version of the article only (on ScienceDirect), with black-and-white reproduction in print, is available at no cost. However, authors must provide usable electronic files for the color versions of their figures and separate files or hard copies of the black-and-white versions of the figures. Only .tif and .eps files in RGB color mode will be accepted for Web-only color. If the electronic version of the art is unusable, Elsevier will not post the color version. Authors should clearly state in a cover letter sent to the editorial office or at final acceptance which figures they would like reproduced in color for free in the electronic version of the article only and which figures they would like reproduced in color in the print and electronic versions at a cost to them.

Manuscript Transmission. If your manuscript is accepted for publication, Elsevier requires an editable electronic copy. Authors may ftp, e-mail, or submit a disk of their electronic manuscript and/or artwork. The Publisher will not accept .ps or .pdf files. Figures will be accepted in .tif or .eps formats only at 300 dpi for halftones and 1200 dpi for line art.

Literature Citations
Careful compliance with the instructions for preparing the list of references is required; manuscripts with incomplete references (or missing abstracts) may be returned to the author for correction before being sent out for review.

Literature citations in the text should be in one of the following forms: Estrada and Cuzzi, 1996 (for two authors); Zappal et al., 1995 (for three or more authors); Ip, 1995, p. 299 (for reference to a specific page). To distinguish two or more works by the same author(s) in the same year, use suffixes a, b, etc., following the year (e.g., Encrenaz et al., 1996a, 1996b).

References to personal communications, manuscripts in preparation, anonymous ftp files, databases, or Web pages should not be included in the bibliography, but should be cited parenthetically in the text.

Literature citations in the bibliography should be listed alphabetically (and then chronologically) according to the surname of the (first) author. The listings of authors having multiple entries should first list all papers by the author alone chronologically, then two author papers, alphabetically and then chronologically, and finally all multiple author papers. This latter group should be listed according to the surname of the (first) author and then chronologically. Journal references should contain the names and initials of all authors, the year, the title of the article, and the standard abbreviation of the journal, the volume number, and the first and last pages. As an exception to this rule, any article with more than 10 co-authors may be listed using a style like "Belton, M.J.S., and 10 colleagues ... ." Shown below are examples of the proper reference forms for a book, a journal article, and a book chapter, respectively.

Cravens, T.E., 1997. Physics of Solar System Plasmas. Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge, UK.

Harris, A.W., Davies, J.K., Green, S.F., 1998. Thermal infrared spectrophotometry of the near-Earth asteroids 2100 Ra-Shalom and 1991 EE. Icarus 135, 441-450.

Banerdt, W.B., McGill, G.E., Zuber, G.E., 1997. Plains tectonics on Venus. In: Bougher, W., Hunten, D.M., Phillips, R.J. (Eds.), Venus II. Univ. of Arizona Press, Tucson, pp. 901-930.

Guidelines for Submission of Notes

Short papers on especially topical subjects will be given unusually rapid handling if they satisfy the following limitations on length:

(i) Notes should be typed double-spaced and should be no longer than 10 pages, including a very brief abstract of one or two sentences.

(ii) The sum of figures and tables should be less than or equal to 3.

A manuscript submitted as a Note should follow the same rules for submission, tables and figures, color illustrations, literature citations, and transmission as described above for regular manuscripts. We expect that Icarus will publish Notes within 4 months of submission, if no revision is required. We will try to complete refereeing and editorial handling in less than 1 month.

Preparation of Supplementary Material

Supplementary files offer additional possibilities for publishing supporting applications, movies, animation sequences, high-resolution images, background datasets, sound clips, and more. Supplementary files supplied will be published online alongside the electronic version of your article in Elsevier Web products, including ScienceDirect ( http://www.sciencedirect.com). To ensure that your submitted material is directly usable, please provide the data in one of our recommended file formats. Authors should submit the material in electronic format together with the article and supply a concise and descriptive caption for each file. Please note, however, that supplementary material will not appear in the printed journal. For more detailed instructions, please visit http://www.elsevier.com/artworkinstructions.

Proofs

Proofs of the typeset article will be sent to the corresponding author. Authors will be charged for excessive alterations in proof. Elsevier will do everything possible to get your article corrected and published as quickly and accurately as possible. Therefore, it is important to ensure that all of your corrections are sent back to us in one communication, by the corresponding author. Subsequent corrections will not be possible, so please ensure your first sending is complete.

Offprints

The corresponding author, at no cost, will be provided with a PDF file of the article via e-mail. The PDF file is a watermarked version of the published article and includes a cover sheet with the journal cover image and a disclaimer outlining the terms and conditions of use.