I didn't know that-that was indeed my biggest reservation,not that I can be sure I wouldn't get shot down in short order anyway in the process of peer review.......If that's the case I wonder why so many don't omit that aspect of their study?
I guess I should qualify that specificity may be in the eye of the beholder. I read a lot of papers these days that describe a study site as a given park, refuge, wilderness area, WMA, etc. Its not uncommon for mountain ranges to be mentioned, either. What I see less and less are gps coordinates, maps with recognizable features, etc. A good example would be Rulon Clark's 2008 paper, with Brown, Stechert, and Zamudio. This paper talks about timber landscape genetics and is highly geographical in nature, yet includes no specific location descriptions, and the only map is a broad-scale depiction of New York State, with a series of highly featureless images that only show (to scale) the relative distributions of timber densites that were sampled.
I'm not sure why more people don't omit locality info. I think a large part is simple naivete, either on the parts of the authors or by the editors/referees (which I think you could easily argue against).
I recently "found" a population of green salamanders simply by googling 'green salamander' and a nearby WMA where I suspected they existed. That led me straight to a website that had a grad student's defense powerpoint with maps so specific I was later able to identify the exact rocks she used in her study (didn't hurt that she'd left flags next to the crevices she was studying). I was so dumbfounded that I emailed the society who had the talk online, only to be told that it "wasn't a big deal".
And yes Van I don't know how well I'd take the process of peer review,which I admit to be fully unfamiliar with firsthand.I'm sure it could get very trying.
I've only published a few papers myself, but my average turnaround time (from first submission to publication) is about 9 months, and none have been accepted on the first try, most not even on the second. Its probably the most frustrating process known to man, but that's what maintains quality.
Van