Advances in Earth Science ›› 2012, Vol. 27 ›› Issue (5): 515-528. doi: 10.11867/j.issn.1001-8166.2012.05.0515

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Advances in Provenance Studies of Changjiang Riverine Sediments

Fan Daidu 1, 2, Wang Yangyang 1, Wu Yijing 1   

  1. 1.State Key Laboratory of Marine Geology, Tongji University, Shanghai200092, China;
    2.Key Laboratory of the Yantze River Water Environment, MOE, Tongji University, Shanghai200092, China
  • Received:2011-10-31 Revised:2012-03-20 Online:2012-05-10 Published:2012-05-10

Fan Daidu, Wang Yangyang, Wu Yijing. Advances in Provenance Studies of Changjiang Riverine Sediments[J]. Advances in Earth Science, 2012, 27(5): 515-528.

The methods of provenance analysis have recently developed very rapidly with obvious increase in the effectiveness of the provenance discrimination. The trend development of the methodology includes wide usage of geochemical compositions of rare earth elements and isotopes and micro-analyses of single-grain detrital minerals to trace sediment source, and the replacement of traditional analysis of bulk samples by different-sized subsamples or typicalsized subsamples. Provenance studies of the Changjiang reverine sediments from their source to the sink system have recently attracted great interest, especially due to its highest importance in the linkage of the Tibet Plateau with the marginal seas along the West Pacific. Most of provenance studies of the Changjiang riverine sediments focus on two aspects. One is the attempt to construct the sediment-source discrimination model of the Changjiang River from others (typically the Huanghe River), and apply the model to trace transportation and distribution pattern of the Changjiang-sourced sediment in the East China marginal seas. The other is the attempt to set up the provenance distinguishing models of different tributaries or tectonic provinces within the Changjiang drainage basin, using the model to study the spatio-temperal variation in sediment delivery processes within the drainage system, and decode the evolution history of the Changjiang River network since the Late Cenozoic and its relationship with the uplift of the Tibet Plateau, gigantic geomorphological changes in East Asia, and evolving Asian monsoon system.
The end-member model of the Changjiangsourced sediments has been extensively studied in the last  few decades through employing the methods of detrital mineral assemblages, elemental and isotopic composition, etc., typically on the finegrained fraction. Most of the effort is put on the discrimination between the Changjinag and the Huanghe riverine sediments. It is recommended that future studies should pay more attention to the impact of the spatio-temperal change in the endmember characters, transported fraction, and early diagensis on the end-member modeling discrimination of river-sourced sediments in the marginal seas. It is more effective to fingerprint the sediment source from different tributaries or tectonic units with the drainage basin through using the discrimination methods on the coarse-grained fraction, typically the micro-analysis of the single detrital mineral grains. It is very complex and still under its early stage to set up fingerprinting model for the discrimination of individual tributaries or tectonic units within the Changjiang river basin due to its huge drainage area, numerous tributary networks, and various geological and climatic environments. The effort in the near future is suggested to build up a bigger database, especially to synthesize data of detrital zircon U-Pb ages, REE and Hf isotopic compositions. The recent research  tend to constrain the Changjiang runningthrough time on a narrower period of the Pliocene and the Early Pleistocene based on integrated provenance study of the Late Cenozoic sediments of several deep cores in the Changjiang middlelowerreach and deltaic basins. The controversies are still significant on the sediment source discrimination and the timing of the Changjiang formation.
Therefore, it  still needs to refine the sediment fingerprinting methodology for the higher resolution, drill more deep cores typically in some key districts of the basins at the Changjiang middle and lower reaches and the surrounded seas, improve the dating accuracy and resolution of the ages of the Late Cenozoic strata, and promote comparison studies of the provenance analysis and chronological stratigraphy among the cores.

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