Provenance Tracing of Indicative Minerals in Sediments of the Yalu River Estuary and its Adjacent Shallow Seas

Abstract

Liu, Y.; Cheng, Y.; Li, H.X.; Liu, J.W.; Zhang, C.P.; Zhang, L.; Zheng, C.D., and Gao, J.H. 2013. Provenance Tracing of Indicative Minerals in Sediments of the Yalu River Estuary and its Adjacent Shallow Seas.Vitreous tuff, sphene, andalusite, staurolite, and kyanite are minerals indicative of source and are found in the Yalu River estuary and its adjacent shallow seas. After analyzing the longitudinal variation of content and characteristic index of these indicative minerals (including mineral maturity, source zone index, stability coefficient, ATi index, and ZTR index) in 58 representative surface sediment samples and discussing their trace significance, results were obtained. Surface sediments in the Yalu River estuary and its adjacent shallow seas are found to belong to different provenances. Douliupu and its surroundings represent the southern boundary of the Yalu River's bed load transportation. Surface sediments in shallow seas have moved inward toward land. Sediments in the West-river-way reveal contact with the deposition from shallow seas, retaining characteristics of the main channel before construction of the Shuifeng reservoir, upstream in the Yalu River. While the deposits in the Middle-river-way are similar to the Aihe River, they showed a greater content of modern river deposits. Most sediments in the Liaodong shoals originate from the Yalu River; some originate from the shallow seas via storm surge. Modern river deposits are unable to reach easily the deposition zone near underwater tidal ridges in the shallow seas.