Organic Carbon Inferred Environmental Fluctuations during Late Quaternary, Southwestern Taiwan

Abstract

ABSTRACT1 Department of Geoscience, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan, ROC * Corresponding author address: Prof. Yue-Gau Chen, Department of Geoscience, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan, ROC; E-mail: ygchen@ntu.edu.twOrganic carbon abundance and isotopic composition of sediments in a coastal plain are potentially used to indicate depositional environments and hinterland organic sources. Since Taiwan is located on the eastern margin of the Eurasian continent facing eastward to the Pacific, its geographical position is sensitive to interactions between the sea and land. Changes in the climate have a direct bearing on the costal environment and types of terrestrial plant species that inhabit it. In this study, we sampled two cores drilled from the coastal plain of southwestern Taiwan, and conducted concentration and isotopic analyses of organic carbon.Compared with the generally accepted environmental evolution of Taiwan, our study shows the dominant marine organic source have brought on relatively stable carbon abundance and low level isotopic values for total organic carbon (TOC), whilst input from terrestrial sources attributed to arid-climate-induced C 4 plant blooms make TOC content and δ

The isotopic composition of particulate organic carbon in mountain rivers of Taiwan

“…There are clear distinctions between the 286 main geological formations (Table 5) and Pilushan Formation, agreeing with previous measurements (Chiang and Chen, 2005).…”