Sediment mass and distribution in the South China Sea since the Oligocene  

作　　者：HUANG Wei WANG Pinxian 

机构地区：[1]State Key Laboratory of Marine Geology, Tongji University, Shanghai 200092, China State Key Laboratory of Marine Geology, Tongji University, Shanghai 200092, China

出　　处：《Science China Earth Sciences》2006年第11期1147-1155,共9页中国科学（地球科学英文版）

基　　金：This work was supported by the National Key Basic Research Projects(Grant No.G2000078500);the Science Fund for Creative Research Groups(Grand No.40321603);the National Natural Science Foundation of China(Grant Nos.40276019,40506014,and 40476027);the Basic Scientific and Technical Resources Information Platform of Ministry of Education of China(Grant No.505003).

摘　　要：The sediment macro-distribution patterns and their evolutionary characteristics in the South China Sea (SCS) are discussed based on a quantification of the sediment mass from the beginning of seafloor spreading in the Oligocene to the Present. Above the pre-Oligocene base, the total sediment mass for the whole SCS is estimated to be 1.44×1016 t, with the highest average accumulation rate of ～22 g·cm-2·ka-1 in the Oligocene. Having no large abyssal fans but fast accumulation in sedimentary basins on the continental shelf and slope, the SCS shows quite different sedimentary characters not only from the open ocean but also from small backarc basins along the marginal West Pacific, apparently controlled by the coupling between local tectonics and global climate changes.The sediment macro-distribution patterns and their evolutionary characteristics in the South China Sea (SCS) are discussed based on a quantification of the sediment mass from the be- ginning of seafloor spreading in the Oligocene to the Present. Above the pre-Oligocene base, the total sediment mass for the whole SCS is estimated to be 1.44×1016 t, with the highest average accumulation rate of ~22 g·cm-2·ka-1 in the Oligocene. Having no large abyssal fans but fast accumulation in sedimentary basins on the continental shelf and slope, the SCS shows quite different sedimentary characters not only from the open ocean but also from small backarc basins along the marginal West Pacific, apparently controlled by the coupling between local tectonics and global climate changes.

关 键 词：sedimentary patterns  SEDIMENT mass  West Pacific MARGINAL seas  South China Sea. 

分 类 号：N[自然科学总论]