Geochemical compositions of river and shelf sediments in the Yellow Sea: Grain-size normalization and sediment provenance

Abstract

The geochemistry of sediment samples from Korean and Chinese rivers provides source indicators enabling these river materials to be identified within the sediment load of the Yellow Sea. Elements enriched in Chinese river sediments relative to those in Korean rivers include Ca, Na, Sr, and Cu. Korean river sediments have higher Al, K, Ba, and Li concentrations, but extremely low Ca concentrations. Direct comparisons of these elemental concentrations in Yellow Sea sediments become difficult due to grain-size effects and the presence of biogenic materials and pollutants that produce significant variation in the data. The concentrations of Fe, Mg, Ti, V, and Co with respect to Al are distinctly different in both groups of river sediments and the correlations of these elements with Al display different linear regression trends for both groups of river sediments indicating differences in composition. These differences, especially in Fe and Mg, provide a basis for discriminating sediment sources of the Yellow Sea. Further, the grain-size normalization, using these two liner regression lines, enables the source areas to be differentiated more clearly in the Yellow and East China Seas.