Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta or GCA, established in 1950, is a semi-monthly, peer review

Peer review

Peer review is a process of self-regulation by a profession or a process of evaluation involving qualified individuals within the relevant field. Peer review methods are employed to maintain standards, improve performance and provide credibility...

ed, scientific journal

Scientific journal

In academic publishing, a scientific journal is a periodical publication intended to further the progress of science, usually by reporting new research. There are thousands of scientific journals in publication, and many more have been published at various points in the past...

 published by Elsevier. It is sponsored by the Geochemical Society

Geochemical Society

The Geochemical Society is a nonprofit and international scientific society for the purpose of encouraging the application of chemistry to solve problems involving geology and cosmology...

 and the Meteoritical Society

Meteoritical Society

The Meteoritical Society is a non-profit scholarly organization founded in 1933 to promote research and education in planetary science with emphasis on studies of meteorites and other extraterrestrial materials that further our understanding of the origin and history of the solar system.The...

. The current Executive editor, since the year 2000, is Frank Podosek (Washington University). This journal is published in English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

, French

French language

French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

, and German

German language

German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....

.

Scope

The publishing focus of Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta is geochemistry

Geochemistry

The field of geochemistry involves study of the chemical composition of the Earth and other planets, chemical processes and reactions that govern the composition of rocks, water, and soils, and the cycles of matter and energy that transport the Earth's chemical components in time and space, and...

, cosmochemistry

Cosmochemistry

Cosmochemistry or chemical cosmology is the study of the chemical composition of matter in the universe and the processes that led to those compositions. This is done primarily through the study of the chemical composition of meteorites and other physical samples...

, and meteor

METEOR

METEOR is a metric for the evaluation of machine translation output. The metric is based on the harmonic mean of unigram precision and recall, with recall weighted higher than precision...

itics. The geochemistry focus encompasses both terrestrial

Earth

Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...

 and other planetary bodies. The interdisciplinary scope covers geology

Geology

Geology is the science comprising the study of solid Earth, the rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which it evolves. Geology gives insight into the history of the Earth, as it provides the primary evidence for plate tectonics, the evolutionary history of life, and past climates...

, chemistry

Chemistry

Chemistry is the science of matter, especially its chemical reactions, but also its composition, structure and properties. Chemistry is concerned with atoms and their interactions with other atoms, and particularly with the properties of chemical bonds....

, biochemistry

Biochemistry

Biochemistry, sometimes called biological chemistry, is the study of chemical processes in living organisms, including, but not limited to, living matter. Biochemistry governs all living organisms and living processes...

, physics

Physics

Physics is a natural science that involves the study of matter and its motion through spacetime, along with related concepts such as energy and force. More broadly, it is the general analysis of nature, conducted in order to understand how the universe behaves.Physics is one of the oldest academic...

, astronomy

Astronomy

Astronomy is a natural science that deals with the study of celestial objects and phenomena that originate outside the atmosphere of Earth...

, and other, specialized, professional disciplines.

Topical coverage includes physical chemistry

Physical chemistry

Physical chemistry is the study of macroscopic, atomic, subatomic, and particulate phenomena in chemical systems in terms of physical laws and concepts...

 (e.g., gases, aqueous solutions, glasses, and crystalline solids), petrology

Petrology

Petrology is the branch of geology that studies rocks, and the conditions in which rocks form....

 (igneous and metamorphic), chemical processes (Earth's atmosphere

Earth's atmosphere

The atmosphere of Earth is a layer of gases surrounding the planet Earth that is retained by Earth's gravity. The atmosphere protects life on Earth by absorbing ultraviolet solar radiation, warming the surface through heat retention , and reducing temperature extremes between day and night...

, hydrosphere

Hydrosphere

A hydrosphere in physical geography describes the combined mass of water found on, under, and over the surface of a planet....

, biosphere

Biosphere

The biosphere is the global sum of all ecosystems. It can also be called the zone of life on Earth, a closed and self-regulating system...

, and lithosphere

Lithosphere

The lithosphere is the rigid outermost shell of a rocky planet. On Earth, it comprises the crust and the portion of the upper mantle that behaves elastically on time scales of thousands of years or greater.- Earth's lithosphere :...

), geochemistry (organic and isotopic), meteoritics (includes meteorite

Meteorite

A meteorite is a natural object originating in outer space that survives impact with the Earth's surface. Meteorites can be big or small. Most meteorites derive from small astronomical objects called meteoroids, but they are also sometimes produced by impacts of asteroids...

 impacts), and lunar

Lunar

Lunar may refer to:*Relating to the Moon*Lunar , a series of console video games*Lunar distance *Lunar calendar...

 sciences.

Publishing formats include original research articles. The invited reviews for non-specialists do not have the original research requirement, but these are peer reviewed, and are intended to have broad relevance. Short comments (4 pages) target specific articles, are not allowed to include original data, and are designed to improve understanding of the target article by advocating a different interpretation supported by the literature. The response of the author is bound by the same guidelines. Editorials, book reviews, and announcements are occasionally published.

Abstracting, indexing, and impact factor

Abstracting and indexing for Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta can be found in the following databases:

• Aqualine Abstracts
• BIOSIS Previews
  BIOSIS Previews
  BIOSIS Previews is an English-language, bibliographic database service, with abstracts and citation indexing. It is part of Thomson Reuters Web of Knowledge suite. Content that was originally integrated from the BIOSIS company before the merger in 2004 is now part of the Web of Knowledge...
  
  
• Current Contents
  Current Contents
  Current Contents is a rapid alerting service database from the Institute for Scientific Information, now part of Thomson Reuters, that is published online and in several different printed subject sections.-History:...
  
  /Physics, Chemical, & Earth Sciences
• Current Contents/SciSearch Database
• Current Contents/Social & Behavioral Sciences
• Energy Data Base
• Energy Research Abstracts
• GeoBase
  GeoBase
  GeoBase is a geospatial platform developed by Telogis. As Telogis was founded as a GPS tracking company, a particular focus was placed on high-transaction spatial rule processing for GPS coordinates reported by remote assets....
  
  
• Geo Bib & Index
• INSPEC
  Inspec
  Inspec is a major indexing database of scientific and technical literature, published by the Institution of Engineering and Technology , and formerly by the Institution of Electrical Engineers , one of the IET's forerunners....
  
  
• International Aerospace Abstracts
• Mineralogical Abstracts
• PASCAL/CNRS
• Petroleum Abstracts
• Research Alert
• Scopus
  Scopus
  Scopus, officially named SciVerse Scopus, is a bibliographic database containing abstracts and citations for academic journal articles. It covers nearly 18,000 titles from over 5,000 international publishers, including coverage of 16,500 peer-reviewed journals in the scientific, technical, medical,...
  
  

Journal Citation Reports

Journal Citation Reports

Journal Citation Reports is an annual publication by the Healthcare & Science division of Thomson Reuters. It has been integrated with the Web of Knowledge, by Thomson Reuters, and is accessed from the Web of Science to JCR Web. It provides information about academic journals in the sciences and...

 rates GCA with an impact factor

Impact factor

The impact factor, often abbreviated IF, is a measure reflecting the average number of citations to articles published in science and social science journals. It is frequently used as a proxy for the relative importance of a journal within its field, with journals with higher impact factors deemed...

of 4.235 for 2008, and 4.385
for 2009.

External links

• Meteoritics & Planetary Science
• Links related to Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta from the Editorial Office. 2007.
• Top 25 GCA articles. Listed quarterly from 2004 by Science Direct. 2010.