A comparison of sedimentary aliphatic hydrocarbon distribution between the southern Okinawa Trough and a nearby river with high sediment discharge

Abstract

Twelve surface sediments from the southern Okinawa Trough (OT) and nine surface sediments from a nearby river, the Lanyang River (LR), with high sediment discharge were analyzed for comparison of their aliphatic hydrocarbon distributions. Performing cluster analysis on all hydrocarbon data of LR and OT sediments showed that the two areas had a similarity level of only 0.15, meaning that they were quite dissimilar. The average ratio of terrigenous to aquatic n-alkanes was 0.99 for LR sediments and 9.64 for OT sediments, indicating that the concentrations of n-alkanes in LR and OT sediments were quite different. Furthermore, the mean pristane/phytane ratios for LR and OT sediments were 1.01 and 2.57, respectively; the difference between them was significant (Student's t test, at the 99% significance level). The carbon preference index (CPI) of C 25–C 33 n-alkanes averaged 3.26 (range 2.16–4.59) for LR sediments and 2.92 (range 2.35–5.24) for OT sediments; no significant difference was found between the two CPI averages (Student's t test, at the 99% confidence level). However, higher plant n-alkanes generally maximized at C 29 for LR sediments, but maximized at C 31 for all OT sediments, strongly indicating significant differences in the origins of the hydrocarbons in these two areas. All present results appear to suggest that LR sediments are not a major hydrocarbon source for OT sediments. In addition, there was no positive, linear correlation between diploptene (hop-22(29)-ene) and terrestrial higher plant n-alkanes for LR and OT sediments.