The authors have responded to comments of the three referees and made changes and corrections on the manuscript. The handling associate editor, however, recommends that further revisions and improvements are necessary before the next steps are taken.

1) The general and specific comments of Anonymous Referee #1 are dealt with rather loosely and should be given further consideration and responded to more positively, e.g. with regards to improvements on the discussion, general description and background information about the island, borhole history and what did it initially reveal (bellshape of temp. curve, what causes it?)

2) The graphic presentations and explanations given are rather poor and confusing at times, major improvements necessary.

- Figure 1. There were 44 surface samples taken on the island, only 41 are found on the overview map of the island! You have to show all the samples on the map. If they are in the same spot as other nearby samples, that has to be shown. Also you need to make a reference to Figure 1 earlier in the main text, e.g. in section 2.1. (page 3 of the manuscript), where you describe the surface sampling and study sites.

- Figure 2. No reference is made to this figure in the main text!! Should also be done in section 2.1. on page 3. The order of sample types in the figure text should be the same as on the photos above. You start with bare sand without droppings, i.e. SJ samples,etc. The last sentence of the figure text is irrelevant and should be taken out, the tracks after the respiration chambers are hardly noticeable on photos C and D.

- Figure 3. The HAE has earlier rasied questions on the presentation of data in the figure. a) what determines the order of samples? b) it is, in my mind, not logical to use a line diagram here as the samples are not connected, a scatter plot or even a table would be more appropriate, c) three types of surface samples were taken on the island (SJ, SS and SR), in Fig. 3 you, on the other hand, present four types of samples, which is confusing. d) on the x-axis of the graph a separation should be made between the different categories and the samples lying on the borderlines. The vertical lines should be drawn between the samples (e.g. SR-8 and SJ-9) etc.

- Figure 4. Part of the sample labels on the left side of the graph are unreadable, as they overlap with each other, they need to be moved about and made readable.

- Figure 5. The text "Depth fo(?)temp. data logger" should be deleted from the diagram, can be indicated by e.g. TL, after the sample numbers. Note also the figure text. What was the main purpose of this exercise? Was it to remeasure the temperature in the hole or was it to take samples at different depths and temperature regimes. You have to mention the samples taken in the text. The last sentence of the figure text should be taken out, has already been explained in the main text.
In the main text, section 3.1.5, p. 11, you make a reference to figures 5a and 5b. There is only one Figure 5 in the manuscript.

Figure 6. In the figure text you should mention that the SB samples are from the Surtsey borehole.

Figure 7. The presentation of the data would be more logical in a table than this columnar digrams. a) In Figure 7.a. your legend shows 18 different types, however, only about 6 are visible on the two diagrams. You do not give a legend for something you cannot see or identify. The same applies to Fig. 7.b.,there you see less than half of the types indicated by the legend. b) Also note the order on the two figures, on Fig. a, you start with the larges class at the top, but on Fig. 7b., it is the opposite.

The manuscript is ready for publication after the last changes.

Here are the final remarks from the HAE for the authors to consider.

P.2, lines: 60 - 62. --> .. in June 1967. In 1979 a 181 m deep hole was drilled to investigage.... (one sentence --> two sentences)

P.25. Fig 4. I suggest you erase all numbers on the fig., just leave the SJ, SR and SS labels. Then in the figure text you can include SR 1-12 and SR 15-17 in brackets, where they belong in the red and purple.(The figure looks much better now than in the previous version, with all the labels included)

P.26. Fig.5. In the fig. text change the first two sentence to --> Temperature at 5 m interval along the drill hole, from the surface to the bottom at 178 m.

P.32, Table 2. In the last column heading: Vegetation --> Vegetation cover