Geological environment in the South China Sea

Abstract

The South China Sea (SCS), situated in southern China, at the junction of the Pacific Plate, the Eurasian Plate, and the Indian Ocean Plate, is a northeast-southwest trending semi-enclosed sea. It spans an area of approximately 3.5 million square kilometers and has an average water depth of about 1 200 m, its deepest point reaching 5 559 m. In 2021, a scientific expedition (called as U1 voyage) in the South China Sea was organized by the Innovation Research Team of Guangdong Special Key Program from March to April, this marks the first comprehensive scientific research voyage to the southern U-boundary corridor. Consisting of a total of 30 papers, this special issue is to share a portion of the research findings from this scientific expedition U1 voyage, covering six aspects: 1) characteristics of the marine ecosystem in the SCS and its response to marine dynamic processes; 2) multi-scale marine dynamic processes, sea-air interactions, and forecasting techniques in the SCS; 3) geomorphology and geological structure; 4) sedimentary processes and resource potential in the SCS; 5) geostrategy, rights and interests maintenance and strategic countermeasures in the SCS; 6) marine scientific instruments. By integrating the scientific research with the study of history, jurisprudence and international strategies, this issue presents new insights into the formation history and scope evolution of the SCS, and it also seeks to establish a new scientific framework based on the marine governance and development of the SCS.