Dear Stephanie Strother and Ulrich Salzmann and co-authors,

First I would like to thank anonymous reviewer#1 and Michael Hannah (#2) for their thorough review of your manuscript and you for your response. Based on your response I have the impression that you have already addressed most of the reviewers concerns and I am curious to see how the revised manuscript will turn out. Both reviewers emphasize that this manuscript addresses an important problem and that it therefore is an important manuscript. They also address a few issues such as the relatively low number of measurements/individuals and the seemingly somewhat circular argument on how to differentiate between in situ versus reworked pollen. The discussion on the sample number illustrates that developing a method based on the actual samples the method has to applied to might not be the right way to go. I agree with your response and statistically the results are sound, but the method and the results might have been more convincing and feel more robust if they had come from different records. The somewhat circular argument is more difficult, if all reworked material was either older or younger that the “in situ” palynomorphs than the most or least fluorescent palynomorphs would reflect “in situ”. And there should be a correlation between the most or least fluorescent palynomorphs with depth, burial history and/or exposure to heat. Palynomorphs deviating from this correlation would be the reworked fraction. However, if both older and younger reworked material could end up in your sample how do you correct for that. I remain a bit confused about this, but I think that perhaps the revised manuscript where the term “mean” has been changed, for instance, will clarify a lot. Perhaps the graph (3) with the data for the 5 different species could be redrawn for each species individually with some indication of trends with depth/exposure to heat and what would be “in situ” and what would be reworked data points? I think if the authors will make the changes as indicated in their response and can clarify some of the issues raised by the reviewers by adding additional paragraphs and reformulating some of the text, the manuscript could be published in Biogeosciences.

I am looking forward to the revised manuscript.

Best regards,

Marcel

Dear Stephanie Strother and co-authors,

Thank you for answering the reviewers comments and adjusting your manuscript. I think it reads much better and accept for a few minor technical issues it can be published in Biogeosciences.

Best regards,

Marcel