The Seismological Society of America (SSA) is the definitive US scholarly society for seismology. It was organized in 1906, in the months following the April 18 San Francisco earthquake, and is headquartered in Albany, California. SSA publishes three peer-reviewed journals, all hosted on the GeoScienceWorld platform: the Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America (BSSA), publishing since 1911; Seismological Research Letters (SRL); and The Seismic Record (TSR), a fully open-access, online-only short-format journal launched in 2021.

If your research concerns earthquake seismology, seismic hazard, earthquake engineering seismology, Earth structure imaging, or seismological instrumentation and networks, an SSA journal is very likely on your shortlist. This guide covers which of the three titles fits your paper, the fee structure (page charges versus open-access fees), peer review, and how to submit.

• Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America (BSSA) - original peer-reviewed research at the frontiers of seismology and earthquake system science: theoretical analyses, in-depth data analyses, advanced modeling and simulations, emerging techniques, and methodological developments. 2025 Journal Impact Factor about 3.2.
• Seismological Research Letters (SRL) - concise, focused research papers on seismology and related topics of interest to the broad geoscience community, alongside articles on seismic networks, instrumentation, data products, and practice. 2025 Journal Impact Factor about 3.2.
• The Seismic Record (TSR) - launched 2021; short-form papers (no more than 3,500 words and 30 references) across the entire spectrum of seismological science, published open access under a CC BY license.

For manuscripts submitted to BSSA and SRL after November 15, 2024, authors choose one of two publishing models. TSR is fully open access. Figures in the table are from the SSA fee pages as of 2026; check the current fee page before submission.

Waivers. TSR grants a full APC waiver to corresponding authors from Research4Life Group A countries and additional discounts for Group B. For BSSA/SRL page charges, the editor may reduce charges for authors without grant or institutional support - request the waiver at original submission (one waiver every two years; up to 12 pages waived).

SSA journals use single-anonymized peer review: reviewers know the authors' identities, but not vice versa. BSSA and SRL follow standard research-journal timelines; The Seismic Record is built for speed, aiming to publish within roughly two months of initial submission. Editorial boards are drawn from the international seismology community.

1. Pick the journal. Use the decision table above - depth and length favor BSSA, breadth and community interest favor SRL, speed and brevity favor TSR.
2. Read the submission guidelines. Each journal has its own author guidelines on seismosoc.org, including TSR's 3,500-word and 30-reference limits.
3. Prepare your manuscript. Use the SSA author-year citation style; SSA journal templates are available on SciSpace.
4. Submit via Editorial Manager. SSA journals use Editorial Manager (e.g., editorialmanager.com/tsr for The Seismic Record).
5. Choose your publishing model. For BSSA and SRL, select page charges or the open-access license at submission; TSR is open access by default.

SSA is a COPE member and follows COPE guidance on corrections, retractions, and publication ethics. Open-access articles are published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license. Authors publishing under the BSSA/SRL page-charge model may deposit the accepted manuscript in repositories under a non-exclusive license, while OA authors may share the published version immediately.