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Hemipelagic Sediment Accumulation Rates in the South China Sea Related to Late Quaternary Sea-Level Changes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Joachim Schönfeld  and
Hermann-Rudolf Kudrass
Joachim Schönfeld
Affiliation:
GEOMAR Research Center for Marine Geosciences, Wischhofstr. 1-3, D-24148 Kiel, Germany
Hermann-Rudolf Kudrass
Affiliation:
Bundesanstalt für Geowissenschaften und Rohstoffe, Stilleweg 2, D-30655 Hannover, Germany
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Abstract

Sediments of 13 piston cores from opposite continental slopes of the South China Sea, off southern China and Sabah (northern Borneo), were analyzed by sedimentological methods and dated by oxygen isotope stratigraphy. Sediments mostly consist of hemipelagic clay with 20% carbonate off Sabah and 40% off China. We calculated terrigenous and carbonate accumulation rates for up to 11 time-slices from the Holocene to oxygen-isotope stage 6. Terrigenous accumulation rates generally increase with water depth and reach a maximum at the middle slope off Sabah and at the lower continental slope off China. During glacial and interglacial times this distribution pattern did not markedly change, despite an increase of accumulation rates for glacial periods by a factor of 2 to 5 compared to interglacial periods. Rates are negatively correlated with positions of sea level, which controls the partition of fluviatile terrigenous material for deposition on shelf, slope, and abyssal plain. Carbonate accumulation rates are higher off China by a factor of 2 compared to Sabah, probably indicating higher calcareous plankton productivity.

Type
Research Article
Information
Quaternary Research , Volume 40 , Issue 3 , November 1993 , pp. 368 - 379
Copyright
University of Washington

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