A quantitative reconstruction of the paleoenviornmental variations of the South Yellow Sea inner shelf based on benthic foraminiferal transfer functions

Abstract

Transfer functions between the benthic foraminiferal fauna of seventy-one sediment surface-samples retrieved from the South Yellow Sea inner shelf and the environmental factors, including the summer bottom-water salinity (S (s)), the summer bottom-water temperature (T (s)) and the winter bottom-water temperature (T (w)) have been developed utilizing weighted averaging partial least square regression (WA-PLS). Subsequently, the transfer functions have been applied to a late Holocene piston core SY01 from the South Yellow Sea inner shelf, established the variation curves of the S (s), T (s), and T (w) during the last 3.9 cal. ka. The S (s) and T (s) showed a nearly synchronous trend to the published stalagmite delta O-18 curve from the Jiuxian Cave, meaning they could be used as reliable indicators for the summer monsoon. Similarly, the T (w) could be used as an indicator for the winter monsoon for its synchronous change to the insensitive grain size variation of the core ZY-2 retrieved from the Central Yellow Sea mud area. These results suggest that transfer functions based on benthic foraminiferal fauna can be a potentially useful tool in palaeoceanographic and palaeoenvironmental research along the Chinese seaboard.