Journal profile · Geosciences, Multidisciplinary
HOLOCENE
ISSN 0959-6836 · eISSN 1477-0911 · SAGE Publications Ltd · ENGLAND · Bimonthly
HOLOCENE: CAS Zone 3 · Earth Sciences (2025 upgraded edition); impact factor 1.58; hybrid open access; APC about USD 3,650; review about 141 days (submission to acceptance, publisher); community-reported acceptance: fairly hard; 95 articles in 2025; indexed in SCIE and Scopus.
Scope
Aims, scope and focus
HOLOCENE is published by SAGE Publications Ltd and is in Zone 3 of Earth Sciences in the CAS Journal Ranking (2025 upgraded edition). By OpenAlex counts of its recent articles, its largest topics are Geology and Paleoclimatology Research, Archaeology and ancient environmental studies and Tree-ring climate responses, together about 50.1% of its articles. Its main subfields are Atmospheric Science. (generated from OpenAlex topic counts and CAS ranking data)
The Holocene is a high impact, peer-reviewed journal dedicated to fundamental scientific research at the interface between the long Quaternary record and the natural and human-induced environmental processes operating at the Earth's surface today. The HoloceneView full journal description This journal is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).
From the journal's Aims & Scope
Research area (LetPub): Geosciences, Multidisciplinary
Main research topics OpenAlex counts of recent articles; shares are approximate
- Geology and Paleoclimatology ResearchEarth and Planetary Sciences32.7%
- Archaeology and ancient environmental studiesEarth and Planetary Sciences10.6%
- Tree-ring climate responsesEarth and Planetary Sciences6.8%
- Pleistocene-Era Hominins and ArchaeologySocial Sciences6.5%
- Geological formations and processesEarth and Planetary Sciences6%
- Isotope Analysis in EcologyEnvironmental Science4.4%
- Pacific and Southeast Asian StudiesSocial Sciences3%
- Coastal wetland ecosystem dynamicsEnvironmental Science2.9%
Rankings & indexing
CAS ranking and database indexing
CAS Journal Ranking
CAS Journal Ranking, upgraded edition (March 2025)Earth Sciences Zone 3
| Level | Category | Zone |
|---|---|---|
| Major | Earth Sciences | Zone 3 |
| Minor | Geography, Physical | Zone 4 |
| Minor | Geosciences, Multidisciplinary | Zone 4 |
Top journal: noReview journal: no
CAS Xinrui Journal Ranking (March 2026)Earth Sciences Zone 3
| Level | Category | Zone |
|---|---|---|
| Major | Earth Sciences | Zone 3 |
| Minor | Geography, Physical | Zone 4 |
| Minor | Geosciences, Multidisciplinary | Zone 3 |
Top journal: noReview journal: not marked
CAS Journal Ranking, previous upgraded edition (December 2023)Earth Sciences Zone 3
| Level | Category | Zone |
|---|---|---|
| Major | Earth Sciences | Zone 3 |
| Minor | Geosciences, Multidisciplinary | Zone 3 |
| Minor | Geography, Physical | Zone 4 |
Top journal: noReview journal: no
Database indexing
SCIEScopusLetPub
International journal early-warning lists: not listed in any editionLetPub
Editions, and major and minor categories, are shown separately and never merged into one zone; check which edition your institution uses before you submit or report.
Metrics
Impact metrics and publication volume
Impact
- Impact factor
- 1.58LetPub ·
- Impact factor (publisher)
- 1.6Publisher website ·
- 5-year impact factor (publisher)
- 2Publisher website ·
- CiteScore 2026-06
- 3.5LetPub ·
- SJR 2026-06
- 0.7LetPub ·
- SNIP 2026-06
- 0.97LetPub ·
- h-index
- 106LetPub ·
- h-index
- 167OpenAlex ·
- i10-index
- 2,859OpenAlex ·
- 2-year mean citedness
- 2.06OpenAlex ·
- Self-citation rate
- 6.2%LetPub ·
- Share of gold OA articles
- 30.37%LetPub ·
Volume
- Articles per year
- 93LetPub ·
- Articles per year (publisher)
- 3Publisher website ·
Articles by year OpenAlex count · 4,438 in total · the current year is incomplete
| Year | Articles | Open access | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | 87 | 39 | 19 |
| 2025 | 95 | 51 | 123 |
| 2024 | 149 | 77 | 539 |
| 2023 | 117 | 62 | 712 |
| 2022 | 121 | 43 | 1,014 |
| 2021 | 138 | 44 | 1,478 |
Sources count differently and were observed at different times, so each source's own value is kept; "publisher" marks figures from the journal's website.
Review & acceptance
Review time and acceptance
Review time from article dates manuscript dates registered with PubMed · to
Too few articlesOnly 4 articles from the last 24 months carry both submission and acceptance dates, too few for a median
Only articles that were accepted and published are counted, not the time spent on rejected manuscripts, so this usually runs longer than a publisher's "time to first decision".
Figures by source
- Average review time (community reports)
- about 6 monthsLetPub ·
- Average acceptance (community reports)
- Fairly hardLetPub ·
- Acceptance rate (publisher)
- 59.7%Publisher website ·
- Desk decision
- 1 daysPublisher website ·
- Submission to first decision
- 1 daysPublisher website ·
- First decision after review
- 54 daysPublisher website ·
- Submission to acceptance
- 141 daysPublisher website ·
- Acceptance to publication
- 65 daysPublisher website ·
- Peer review
- Single anonymous peer reviewPublisher website
Community reports come from authors' own submissions (confidence 0.5) and are not a promise from the journal; for publisher figures, the journal's own definitions apply.
Fees & open access
APC and open-access policy
Hybrid open accessLetPub
A subscription journal in which authors can pay to publish their article open access.
| Source | APC | Fee waiver | License | Observed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| OpenAlex | USD 3,650 / GBP 2,676 | — | — | |
| Publisher website | Yes, amount not published | — | — |
A hybrid journal charges the APC only when the author chooses open access; publishing under the subscription model is usually free.
Other charges and waivers (author guidelines)
- Colour charges
- Charged; see the journal's website for the amount
- Other fees
- Charged; see the journal's website for the amount
- Page charges
- No page charges
- Submission fee
- No submission fee
The journal's website is authoritative for fees; sources were observed at different times and each keeps its own value, without averaging.
Submission
Article types and submission policies (journal website)
What to prepare6 items from the author guidelines
- Manuscript length
- ≤ 8,000 words
- Reference style
- Harvard
- Templates
- LaTeX and Word
- First submission
- Free format: the journal's layout is not required
- Suggested reviewers
- Optional
- Cover letter
- Required
Article types accepted13, with length limits
- fast-track reportsFast-track reports: short contributions of exceptional merit that will be published within four months of acceptance. A case for special treatment must be made …Length not stated
- forum articlesForum articles: short, succinct conceptual contributions including, for example, philosophical viewpoints, methodological advances, critical comment, clarificat…Length not stated
- letterThe following are published: 1. Fast-track reports: short contributions of exceptional merit that will be published within four months of acceptance. A case for…Length not stated
- original researchThe following are published: 1. Fast-track reports: short contributions of exceptional merit that will be published within four months of acceptance. A case for…Length not stated
- research paperThe following are published: 1. Fast-track reports: short contributions of exceptional merit that will be published within four months of acceptance. A case for…Length not stated
- research papersResearch papers: substantial, original research contributions on any aspect of environmental change relevant to the last c. 11,500 years. The nature of the pape…Length not stated
- research reportThe following are published: 1. Fast-track reports: short contributions of exceptional merit that will be published within four months of acceptance. A case for…Length not stated
- research reportsResearch reports: shorter research contributions including, for example, preliminary findings, brief accounts of new techniques, new applications, or simply sig…Length not stated
- research reviewsResearch reviews: substantial, state-of-the-art reviews of research within the field. They may focus on the synthesis of conceptual, technical or factual develo…Length not stated
- reviewThe following are published: 1. Fast-track reports: short contributions of exceptional merit that will be published within four months of acceptance. A case for…main text ≤ 3,000 words
- special issuesSpecial Issues: occasionally the journal publishes Special Issues, usually based on Conference Proceedings, normally of 15 articles of research paper length wit…Length not stated
- thematic setsThematic sets: the journal also considers smaller sets of related papers (usually 3-5) which are published together.Length not stated
- viewpointThe following are published: 1. Fast-track reports: short contributions of exceptional merit that will be published within four months of acceptance. A case for…Length not stated
Policy excerpts from the journal's websiteAuthorship, Data availability, Publication ethics, Open access, Peer review, Plagiarism, Preprints
- Authorship Author contributions
As part of our commitment to ensuring an ethical, transparent and fair peer review and publication process, this journal has adopted CRediT (Contributor Roles Taxonomy). CRediT is a high-level taxonomy, including 14 roles, which is used to describe each author’s individual contributions to the work. You will be asked to list the contribution of each author as part of the submission process. Please…
Source ↗Publisher website ·- Data availability Data availability
Research data sharing policy: Subject to appropriate ethical and legal considerations, authors are encouraged to: Share your research data in a relevant public data repository; Include a data availability statement linking to your data. If it is not possible to share your data, use the statement to Model summary
The Journal is committed to facilitating openness, transparency and reproducibility of research, and has the following research data sharing policy. For more information, including FAQs please visit the Sage Research Data policy pages. Subject to appropriate ethical and legal considerations, authors are encouraged to: Share your research data in a relevant public data repository Include a data ava…
Source ↗Publisher website ·- Publication ethics Ethical considerations
The Journal is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). Model summary
Please include your ethics approval statements under this heading, even if you have already included ethics approval information in your methods section. If ethical approval was not required, you need to explicitly state this. All papers reporting studies involving human participants, human data or human tissue must state that the relevant Ethics Committee or Institutional Review Board approved th…
Source ↗Publisher website ·- Open access Publishing fees and open access
There are no fees payable to submit or publish in this journal. ‘Figures submitted in color will be published in color in the online version of the journal at no cost. If you wish to have color figures in the printed version, the fee will be determined at Production. Optional open access publishing is available for a fee via the Sage Choice program, and Open Access agreements, where authors can pu…
Source ↗Publisher website ·- Peer review Peer review policy
The following summary describes the peer review process for this journal: Identity transparency:Single-anonymized Reviewer interacts with: Editor and Editorial Board Review information published: None Your manuscript will undergo an initial evaluation. If it does not conform to the requirements laid out in these guidelines, it will be returned to you for amendments prior to peer review. Manuscript…
Source ↗Publisher website ·- Plagiarism Plagiarism
The journal and Sage take issues of copyright infringement, plagiarism or other breaches of best practice in publication very seriously. Please read Sage's complete policy on plagiarism and the actions we may take.
Source ↗Publisher website ·- Preprints Preprints
Preprint policy: The journal will consider submissions of manuscripts that have been posted on preprint servers. Please enter the preprint DOI in the designated field when submitting your manuscript. We advise that you inform the Journal Editorial office about your posted preprint at submission. Not Model summary
The journal will consider submissions of manuscripts that have been posted on preprint servers. Please enter the preprint DOI in the designated field when submitting your manuscript. We advise that you inform the Journal Editorial office about your posted preprint at submission. Note that you should not post an updated version of your manuscript on a preprint server while it is being peer reviewed…
Source ↗Publisher website ·
Excerpts are quoted from the journal's website; "model summary" lines are written by Workers AI and checked against the text. The journal's website is authoritative.
Profile
Publication details and official links
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications Ltd
- Country or region
- ENGLAND
- Language
- English
- Frequency
- Bimonthly
- ISSN
- 0959-6836
- Electronic ISSN
- 1477-0911
- Official links
- Journal homepage ↗LetPub
- Submission system ↗Publisher website
- Special issues ↗Publisher website
FAQ
Frequently asked questions about HOLOCENE
What CAS zone is HOLOCENE in?
In the 2025 upgraded edition of the CAS Journal Ranking, HOLOCENE is in Zone 3 of Earth Sciences, and in Zone 4 of the minor category Geography, Physical / Geosciences, Multidisciplinary. In the 2026 Xinrui edition it is in Zone 3 of Earth Sciences. Zones from different editions, and from major and minor categories, are not interchangeable.
What is the impact factor of HOLOCENE?
The latest impact factor listed by LetPub is 1.58; CiteScore 3.5, h-index 167.
How long does peer review take at HOLOCENE?
The publisher reports about 141 days (submission to acceptance); authors report an average review time of about 6 months; the community-reported acceptance is “Fairly hard”; the journal's website gives an acceptance rate of 59.7%. Article statistics cover accepted papers only, publisher figures follow the journal's own definitions, and community reports come from authors' own submissions; none is a promise from the journal.
What are the manuscript requirements of HOLOCENE?
According to the journal's author guidelines: Manuscript length: ≤ 8,000 words; Reference style: Harvard; Templates: LaTeX and Word; First submission: Free format: the journal's layout is not required; Suggested reviewers: Optional; Cover letter: Required. A model extracted these from the author guidelines and each was checked against the text; check the latest version on the journal's website before submitting.
Which databases index HOLOCENE?
According to LetPub and DOAJ records, HOLOCENE is indexed in SCIE and Scopus.
Is HOLOCENE open access, and what is the APC?
HOLOCENE is a hybrid journal. For open-access publication: APC about USD 3,650.
Sources and updates
The facts on this page come from LetPub, Publisher website, OpenAlex; every figure is tagged with its source and the date it was observed, and conflicting values are kept per source. LetPub source page: view ↗ (archived 2026-08-25). Last updated: .