ngeo-figures

Nature Geoscience Figures (ngeo-figures)

When to trigger

• You have many candidate maps, sections, and time series and must choose 4–6
• Your lead figure does not convey the Earth-system advance at a glance
• Panels are dense, captions are long, or map/section elements are unreadable at column width
• You are over the display-item ceiling and must merge or relocate
• A coauthor wants to "add one more panel just in case"

Display-item budget for an Article

A Nature Geoscience Article carries 4–6 display items (figures and/or tables combined; verify). Every one must earn its place and be legible to a non-specialist. The hierarchy:

• Lead figure (Fig. 1) — conveys the headline advance at a glance. A reader skimming should grasp the result, and ideally its uncertainty, from this figure plus its caption alone. Often a map or cross-section that situates the study and shows the key signal.
• Supporting figures — each makes exactly one additional point (a mechanism, a dependence, a data–model comparison, a time series with error envelope).
• Everything else — extended maps, all model members, secondary proxies, raw traces → Supplementary Information (Fig. Sn).

If a display item does not advance the single headline result or one essential support, move it to SI.

Earth-science lead-figure rules

| Principle | Practice |

|----------------------------------|-------------------------------------------------------------------|

| One glance, one message | The eye lands on the advance immediately |

| Show the uncertainty | Error bars, shaded confidence envelopes, or stippling for significance |

| Locate the reader | An inset locator map / schematic orients out-of-subfield readers |

| Data and model together | Overlay the decisive comparison, not in separate figures |

| Honest cartography | State projection, scale, and data source; avoid misleading color scales |

| Annotate the key feature | Arrow / label on the anomaly, front, transition, or trend that matters |

Production standards

• Design for the Nature column grid; check legibility at final printed size.
• Use perceptually-uniform, color-blind-safe colormaps (e.g. viridis, cividis, batlow); never rainbow/jet for quantitative fields, and never encode by color alone.
• For maps: label projection and scale; show the color-bar with units; mark significance (stippling/hatching) rather than hiding it.
• Vector formats for line art and schematics; high-resolution raster for satellite imagery and gridded fields.
• Define every symbol, unit, and abbreviation in the caption; match notation to the main text and Methods.
• Tables: reserve for values that cannot be shown graphically; they count against the display-item budget.

Panel discipline

• Prefer fewer panels with a clear reading order; label (a), (b), (c).
• A dense multi-panel map grid usually signals that supporting panels belong in SI.
• Insets (locator map, zoom, schematic of the mechanism) are powerful but must stay legible.

Checklist

• [ ] Total display items are within the 4–6 ceiling and each is essential
• [ ] Fig. 1 conveys the Earth-system advance at a glance
• [ ] Uncertainty / significance is shown, not hidden
• [ ] Every figure makes exactly one point
• [ ] Maps state projection, scale, units, and data source
• [ ] Color-blind-safe, perceptually-uniform colormaps; no rainbow/jet; not color-only
• [ ] Decisive data–model comparison shown directly
• [ ] Captions define all symbols/units and are as short as clarity allows
• [ ] Non-essential panels/datasets moved to SI

Anti-patterns

• A lead figure too dense to parse without the main text
• Multi-panel map grids that bury the headline
• Rainbow/jet colormaps or color-only encoding that fails in grayscale or for color-blind readers
• Maps with no scale, projection, or units
• Hiding uncertainty by plotting only best-estimate fields
• Decorative figures that do not advance the headline result
• Long captions that quietly consume space

Output format

【Display-item count】N (≤6) — each essential?  yes / cut list
【Fig. 1 conveys the advance at a glance】yes / redesign
【Uncertainty shown】yes / fix
【Per-figure single point】list
【Cartography: projection/scale/units】complete / fix
【Colormap: perceptual + color-blind-safe】yes / fix
【Moved to SI】list
【Next】ngeo-supplementary (SI) or ngeo-length-management (fit limit)

> Display-item counts, figure specs, and colormap guidance are durable in spirit but specific in detail — verify current Nature Geoscience figure rules on the official author pages (Checked: 2026-07-16).