Dear authors,
Many thanks for your detailed rebuttals to the reviewers.
Before I can finally accept the paper, I would like to see the revised version of the original manuscript. Could you please submit the annotated revision?
Cheers,
Jan-Berend

Dear authors,
your manuscript is accepted for publication pending the information requested by the handling editor Jan-Berend Stuut.
Sincerely,
Christine Klaas

Dear Frédéric, and co-authors,
I am sorry that your manuscript is going such a painful way.
Please see my very few comments. I hope you find them useful and that you are willing to change the manuscript accordingly.
Cheers,
Jan-Berend

With apologies for all the confusion and delays that I caused, I am happy to be able to tell you that your manuscript has been accepted for final publication in BG. I join the reviewers in stating that this paper presents an important step forward in understanding the mechanisms related to the bio-availability of insoluble metals in sea water.
Congratulations, and many thanks for submitting your work to our special volume.
Best wishes and happy holidays,
Jan-Berend

Dear author,
The experiments and results presented in this manuscript are novel and of great interest. I do have some issues that I believe should be addressed before publication.
The text needs improvements (English). Suggestions are given in the annotated manuscript.
The authors often report approximate (~) values for quantities, even though data is available. Please in these cases refer to the exact values and their uncertainties.
I failed to understand how the solubility of tracers (section 4.1) was estimated for several reasons:
1) the terms in the equations, in particular Eq.1, are not defined in the text, and the explanations in the text are unclear (see also comments in the annotated manuscript).
2) For the elements that were not measured in the original dust, the authors use the values from the sedimented material. Here the methods and assumptions are also poorly described.
In short: section 4.1 needs some clarifications, and the assumptions should be clear and also discussed.

Further minor aspects that need clarification are commented in the combined annotated manuscript and supplement.

Dear author,
I am glad to inform you that your manuscript is accepted for publication with some minor changes. Please refer to the annotated manuscript for comments/suggestions.
Sincerely,
Christine Klaas

Dear author,
I am glad to inform you that your manuscript is accepted for publication with some minor changes. Please refer to the annotated manuscript for comments/suggestions.
Sincerely,
Christine Klaas