Reply to Shanmugam, G. “Review of research in internal-wave and internal-tide deposits of China: Discussion”

We are glad to know that our paper “Review of research in internal-wave and internal-tide deposits of China” (Gao et al., 2013) published in Journal of Palaeogeography has attracted close attention of international peers, and we noted that Shanmugam has provided a critical assessment of our paper. He claimed that “interpretations of ten ancient examples in China and one in the central Appalachians (USA) as deep-water deposits of internal waves and internal tides are unsustainable”, among many other comments and criticisms, and he concluded that “any interpretation of ancient strata as deposits of internal waves and internal tides is premature”. This article is aimed at responding to his major criticisms. We believe that constructive discussions will benefit the development of the study in internal-wave and internal-tide deposits. Unfortunately, Shanmugam seems not to follow this line of scientific criticism, but is trying to reject all research results in this subject based on his illogical and inconsistent reasoning, and distortion of others’ points of view. In this article, with facts and evidences, we will refuse the main wrong assertions of Shanmugam’s, for example, “the use of bidirectional cross-bedding as evidence for deposition by baroclinic currents in outcrop studies is sedimentologically erroneous ” and “any interpretation of ancient strata as deposits of internal waves and internal tides is premature”. We will also use typical characteristics of the ancient examples to demonstrate that they are certainly not turbidites, or contourites, or tsunami-related deposits, but internal-wave and internal-tide deposits as the most plausible to defend the rationality of our interpretation in our previous papers.