Your title page should include the title, authors with their affiliations, and three key points of your research.

Your abstract should be less than 250 words for all AGU journals, except Geophysical Research Letters (GRL). For Geophysical Research Letters (GRL), your abstract should be less than 150 words.

Availability Statement: For data and software that support your research, citation information and an availability Statement in the Open Research section, indicating where readers can access the data and software, must be present. Statements implying that data are available from authors are not allowed. Refer to Data and Software for Authors for citation and Availability Statement templates and examples.

Your plain language summary should be written for a broad audience that includes journalists and the science-interested public. It should state the general problem, describe what research was conducted, the result, and why the findings are important. The plain language summary improves article discoverability and allows your paper to be more widely accessible. For tips, learn how to write a plain language summary. 

This is required for the following journals: Geophysical Research Letters; Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems (G-Cubed); Journal of Advances in Modeling of Earth Systems (JAMES); JGR: Biogeosciences; JGR: Oceans; JGR: Planets; JGR: Solid Earth; and Reviews of Geophysics. For all other journals, this is optional.

Ensure all key sections have descriptive headings throughout the text for organization.

Ensure that you have continuous line numbers throughout the text for organization. Lines should be spaced 1.5-2 lines.

Check the length of your paper. Papers submitted to Geophysical Research Letters must be 12 publication units (PUs) or less, or they will be returned to the author. AGU assesses excess fees for papers longer than 25 PUs in all other journals, except Reviews of Geophysics. At the time of your submission, be prepared to enter word, table, and figure counts for an automatic PU calculation. More information on publication units and fees, is available on our Publication Fee Table.

Figures and tables should have captions. Both should be placed near where they are cited in the text.

There should be no footnotes in the text.

• All references must be cited in the main text and reference list for indexing. If they appear elsewhere, your submission will be returned.

• References should be formatted according to AGU’s publications style. Every reference must be available publicly online or in print before a paper can be accepted; there should be no “submitted” or “in press” references (unless the “in press” reference has a DOI and is available online). Exceptions are considered by the editor.

Your acknowledgements section should include the following items:

• All funding information from each author pertaining to this work.

• Any conflicts of interest for any author that are not apparent from their affiliations or funding.

• Any additional information on author contributions.

The Editorial Board of JGR: Biogeosciences has made a commitment to bring transparency, equity, and inclusion to publishing in the biogeosciences. As part of this evolving commitment, we are piloting an initiative where we identify manuscripts that have elements of international research and where field work was completed in under-resourced, lower income countries. The aim of this pilot is to help ensure that local researchers receive proper recognition and credit for their contributions to the research. The practice of completing fieldwork outside of one’s country without engaging the local community is an area of concern within the research community (i.e., parachute science, helicopter research).

As part of this pilot, the editorial office may return a manuscript to the corresponding author for additional information. The additional information requested may include: 1) a Global Research Collaboration Statement that addresses ethical and scientific considerations, as applicable to the study; 2) the completion of theCRediTTaxonomy, if not already completed; 3) a more detailed explanation of the authorship in the cover letter, if needed. This additional information will be made available to editors and reviewers during the peer review process.

JGR Biogeosciences also encourage researchers to consider recommendations from the Global Code of Conduct for Research in Resource-Poor Settings when conducting and reporting their research, as applicable.