Evolution of Palaeoenvironment of the South Yellow Sea Since the Last Deglaciation

Abstract

The sediments in core YS01 recovered from the South Yellow Sea mud deposit zone contain abundant benthic foraminifera, particularly shallow continental shelf species, but rare of planktonic foraminifera. The benthic foraminifera are dominated by stenohaline cold shallow-water species and euryhaline brackish-water species. In this paper, the palaeoenvironmental changes were discussed based on the grain-size compositions and benthic foraminiferal assemblages. Six different benthic foraminiferal assemblages were discriminated by species analysis from the foraminiferal fauna. According to AMS14C dating data in core YS01, we identified four main stages of marine environmental changes since the last deglaciation: a near-shore depositional stage (13.1–9.5 kyr B.P.), a transitional stage from near-shore deposition to shallow-sea deposition (9.5–5.6kyrB.P.), a high sea level stage with shallow-sea deposition (5.6–2.9kyrB.P.), and a stable shallow-sea depositional stage (2.9kyr B.P. to the present).