Character and History of the Yangtze Mud Wedge, Fujian Province.

摘要

The long-term goal is to document and understand more completely the shallow marine geology, surface oceanography, and late Quaternary history of the southeast Asian continental margins, particularly in light of the large sediment fluxes from present-day rivers and sea-level fluctuations. Patterns of sediment transport, accumulation and remobilization play critical roles in the acoustic character of the seafloor, particularly as it relates to geoclutter. The purpose of this study was to document the nature of the innermost shelf in the southern East China and eastern South China seas, with particular interest in the fate of the Yangtze River sediment, which historically has discharged ~500 x 106 t of sediment annually. Utilizing new geological and geophysical data, in FY 2004 we continued our investigation (in cooperation with our Chinese partners in Qingdao) of the major mud wedge that extends from the Yangtze River mouth southward along the Zhejiang and Fujian coastline into the Taiwan Strait.