A review on the provenance discrimination of sediments in the Yellow Sea

The Yellow Sea has been extensively studied for the understanding of dispersal patterns and limits of sediments from neighboring countries including China and Korea. Although sedimentological, mineralogical, and geochemical approaches have been tried to solve the problems, especially including the identification of sediment sources in and around the Yellow Sea, the published results are not enough for understanding them. Suggestions on sediment origins, budgets, sediment accumulation rates, mineralogical, and geochemical compositions are not coincident to each other and sometimes even controversial; for example, conflicts on the distribution patterns of smectite and calcium carbonate, the provenance of the southeastern Yellow Sea mud and sedimentation rates in there, the ratios of V/Al and Mn/Al in Korea and China river sediments, the origin of Ba and Pb in sandy sediments of the northeastern Yellow Sea, and so on. Various geochemical indicators from the literature for the provenance discrimination in the Yellow Sea are reviewed here in depth, and corresponding discussions are described separately. Research topics for the future study, also, are suggested for the proper access to the understanding of the origin and dispersal patterns of the Yellow Sea sediments, especially focusing on the geochemical approaches. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.