Dear Authors,

I have read carefully your responses ti the reviewers. It seems that you satifactorily respond to the recommendations of reviewers.

I invite you to download the revised version of your manuscript to study the changes you do in the text and figures before I post my final decision about its publication.

Waiting after seeing your revised manuscript

With my best regards

Nathalie Combourieu-nebout

Dear author,



Thank you for this new version that include most of the reviewer request and is consistent with your responses posted in the open discussion.

I have some short comments and requests before the final acceptance of your manuscript. It concerns only small changes that may be done easily and quickly.

1- Please follow the Rev. 1 and add something about screes I did not seen that.

2- Concerning the remark on page 6 line 17 of Rev.1 on the grain size, why didn’t you add your remark in the text, it will be informative. Please do that.

3- I agree with the reviewer 2 and ask you to precise what you call long term as this term is used for long records to explain the large changes and in fact for lot of researchers millennial changes are called short-term changes. Please modify or explain more.

4- I think that something has to be added concerning the remark of reviewer 2 on the composite section and the other section. Perhaps one or two sentences, may be in the “study area” §.

5- Concerning the palygorskite, I agree with reviewer 2 that values may be better in the figure 1 as it has been done for the ratios. You may add range of values if necessary. Please try to do that.

6- In the same figure choose another colour to represent the Sahara/Sahel limit please. Orange is not very visible on the grey background.

7- In the Figure 7 You said thet you aligned the scales but the 0 is not aligned here especially for the TSI and we do not see the marks that indicate the different ages. Please add them and change that.

8- In response to the remark of Rev.2 on page 11 l.17-34 of your first version, I see nothing in the new text although you said that you added sentences. Perhaps it has been added elsewhere.

9- A little remark on the Mt symbol in the introduction. Perhaps an explanation is necessary in the text for the reader as requested by Rev. 2.

I am waiting after your last version including these very small changes before the definitive acceptance of your paper.

Best regards

Nathalie