Distributions of rare earth elements in sediments from Core NT1 of the South Yellow Sea and their provenance discrimination

The contribution of substance from the Yellow River, the Yangtze River, and Korean rivers to the sedimentation of the Yellow Sea was studied through rare earth elements (REEs) analysis and through provenance discrimination of the sediments from Core NT1 among the argillized area in the central South Yellow Sea. The results show that the sediments in Core NT1 mainly come from the Yangtze River and the Yellow River. The sediments between 0～7.70 m in upper Core NT1 mainly belong to the Yangtze River source;those between 7.70～16.60 m and 40.00～50.70 m in middle Core NT1 are mainly from the Yellow River, the 24 m thick sediment interlayer in it mainly comes from the Yangtze River; and the sediments between 50.70～69.76 m in the bottom of Core NT1 is mainly from the Yangtze River. It is concluded that the Yangtze River has been playing a main role in the argillized area in the central South Yellow Sea since early Late Pleistocene, and the Yellow River started to influence the continental shelf sedimentation of the Yellow Sea from early Warm Glaciation of late Late Pleistocene.