Volcanism and climate change as drivers in Holocene depositional dynamic of Laguna del Maule (Andes of central Chile – 36° S)
Matías Frugone-Álvarez et al.

Frugone-Alvarez et al present a very thorough investigation of Holocene climate in central Chile. They find a change from glacial cold/dry to early Holocene warm/dry to late Holocene warm/humid conditions. Their findings are linked extremely well to existing chronologies.

For this special issue, it would have been interesting to see more tie-ins to the interplay of climate and humans or volcanic eruptions and climate. Certainly having a better established baseline climate for South America will be helpful for others exploring that theme.

The work is high quality, and it has finished peer review with high marks.

I have only two, very minor correction (addition) requests before the paper is ready for publication.

In Review 1, Comment “How certain are the authors that the ash layer suggested to be the Quizapú tephra is indeed so? Are there other possible eruptions that could be correlated with this layer as well, especially since major (or trace) elemental analysis was not performed? ”
The authors did respond to the comment – and the rationale is very reasonable; however, an extra sentence in the text saying (something like) that trace/elemental analysis would be required to definitively establish the provenance… but (and then fill in the rationale that its the only reasonable conclusion, which is in the response to reviewer). ADD ONE SENTENCE TO TEXT

Review 1 & 2 Comments wrt age model uncertainty. The authors’ responses are adequate – however, simply labeling the figures more explicitly (i.e., figure 8e, state shading indicates age model uncertainty etc.) would eliminate this concern; particularly since this shading was understood to be uncertainty by reviewer 2 but not reviewer 1. ADD LABELS IN FIGURES FOR UNCERTAINTY SHADING