An analysis of organic matter sources for surface sediments in the central South Yellow Sea, China: Evidence based on macroelements and n-alkanes

Regional palaeoenvironmental influence on organic matter sequestration and characteristics of carbon isotope segment C5 in a hemipelagic sequence, Organyà Basin, northeast Spain

“…A ternary diagram ( Figure 9B) of the relative abundances of C 27 , C 28 and C 29 αααR steranes shows that the samples plot in the general area of estuarine to open marine OM. These results lend support to the complex nature of OM preserved in the semi-restricted Organyà Basin which accumulated hemipelagic sediments typically derived from both allochthonous terrestrial sources and autochthonous marine sources, consistent with the evidence obtained from the n-alkanes distribution (Sikes et al, 2009;O'Reilly et al, 2014;Zhang et al, 2014a). A lithologic relationship also occurs similar to that discussed for the n-alkanes.…”

Composition and Distribution Characteristics and Geochemical Significance of n-Alkanes in Core Sediments in the Northern Part of the South Yellow Sea

“…Organic matter source of the margin sea is an important scientific subject in the research on carbon cycle [3,4]. The South Yellow Sea is typical semiclosed continental margin sea, into which a large amount of terrigenous matter was transported along streams since Holocene [5,6]. Influenced by runoff of Yellow River and Yangtze River, warm current and alongshore current of the Yellow Sea, and tidal action, South Yellow Sea became an important carbon sink with diverse organic matter and changeable sedimentary environment [7,8].…”

“…Predecessors conduct a large amount of research on source of organic matter and sedimentary environment of South Yellow Sea with stable carbon isotopes [15], content of elements and minerals [16][17][18][19][20], and biomarkers [5,6,[21][22][23] and achieved abundant outcomes. Provenance study results show that organic matter of western and central part of 2 Journal of Chemistry the South Yellow Sea comes from modern Yellow River and ancient Yellow River; sediments in the eastern part are mainly influenced by the matter in Korean Peninsula; nearshore area in the northern part is mainly influenced by the matter in modern Yellow River [15][16][17][18]24].…”

“…Research on organic matter source of sediments in the Yellow Sea shows that nalkanes of South Yellow Sea are dominated by terrigenous inputs [5, 6, 21-23, 25, 26], and the terrigenous n-alkanes are mainly derived from higher plants waxiness [5]. Atmospheric deposition inputs account for a small percentage of n-alkanes, but the river input is a main contributor of n-alkanes [6,27]. The distribution of n-alkanes is characterized by three types: predominance of short-chain n-alkanes, predominance of long-chain n-alkanes, and double-peak groups [5,6,22,28].…”

“…Atmospheric deposition inputs account for a small percentage of n-alkanes, but the river input is a main contributor of n-alkanes [6,27]. The distribution of n-alkanes is characterized by three types: predominance of short-chain n-alkanes, predominance of long-chain n-alkanes, and double-peak groups [5,6,22,28]. Previous research on n-alkanes of organic matter in modern sediments of South Yellow Sea focuses on surface sediment samples [5,6,22,23,28].…”