Tracing the life history of a marginal sea—On “The South China Sea Deep” Research Program

Abstract

the first large-scale basic-research program in ocean science in the country aiming to reconstruct the life history of a marginal sea. The overall scientific objective of the program is to dissect this typical marginal sea by studying its history of evolution and its modern processes, including the following three major components: (1) Development of the deep basin: utilizing new techniques to re-measure magnetic anomaly lineations, to explore the deep tectonic features, to drill the oceanic crust, and to study volcanic seamount chains; (2) deep-water sediments: observing the modern processes to reveal the patterns of deep-water circulations and sedimentation, analyzing deep-sea sediments to recognize paleoceanographic response to basin evolution, and subsequently to bridge the modern and paleo-studies of the deep-sea processes; and (3) biogeochemical processes: using a variety of techniques including deploying submarine observation and deep-water diving device to investigate the distribution patterns and environmental impacts of deepwater seepages and subbottom circulation, and to reveal the role of microbes in deep-sea carbon cycling. As compared with the open ocean and other marginal seas, the South China Sea enjoys many more advantages as a marine basin for reconstructing the life history. Meanwhile, the South China Sea Deep Program provides unique opportunities in studying the evolution and variations of the sea-land interactions between the Pacific and Asia.the South China Sea Deep, marginal sea, deep-sea process, life history, tectonic evolution, sedimentological response, biogeochemistry Citation:Wang P X. Tracing the life history of a marginal

Expedition 349 summary

“…Titanium oxide vs. phosphate, vanadium, scandium, and strontium. Shown for comparison are data for Indian Ocean MORB from the Geochemical Rock Database (georoc.mpch-mainz.gwdg.de), the seamounts in the SCS (Tu et al, 1992;Hékinian et al, 1989), OIB of Hainan Island (Wang et al, 2012), and Pacific MORB (Zhang et al, 2009(Zhang et al, , 2012a(Zhang et al, , 2012b will be compared to those measurements made on the core samples to determine if there are microbes that can be recognized as contaminant taxa. Variations in the natural remanent magnetization (NRM) intensity at Site U1431 generally correlate with lithology.…”

“…A number of ocean bottom seismometer (OBS) studies have been carried out since 2000 (e.g., Yan et al, 2001;. The South China Sea Deep (SCSD) major research program of the National Science Foundation of China has funded coincident seismic refraction/reflection surveys, local active source 3-D OBS surveys, the first regional passive source OBS survey, and the first deep-tow magnetic survey (Wang, 2012). Both deep-towed and surface-towed magnetic survey lines were designed to traverse the primary sites, allowing establishment of the best possible magnetic anomaly model and calibrated age model for the ocean crust for the entire basin.…”

South China Sea Tectonics

“…Titanium oxide vs. phosphate, vanadium, scandium, and strontium. Shown for comparison are data for Indian Ocean MORB from the Geochemical Rock Database (georoc.mpch-mainz.gwdg.de), the seamounts in the SCS (Tu et al, 1992;Hékinian et al, 1989), OIB of Hainan Island (Wang et al, 2012), and Pacific MORB (Zhang et al, 2009(Zhang et al, , 2012a(Zhang et al, , 2012b. will be compared to those measurements made on the core samples to determine if there are microbes that can be recognized as contaminant taxa.…”

“…The South China Sea Deep (SCSD) major research program of the National Science Foundation of China has funded coincident seismic refraction/reflection surveys, local active source 3-D OBS surveys, the first regional passive source OBS survey, and the first deep-tow magnetic survey (Wang, 2012). Both deep-towed and surface-towed magnetic survey lines were designed to traverse the primary sites, allowing establishment of the best possible magnetic anomaly model and calibrated age model for the ocean crust for the entire basin.…”

Scientific Drilling

“…One major initiative is the SCSD Program funded by the NSF-C. With a total budget of ~$25M USD, this eight-year research program (2011)(2012)(2013)(2014)(2015)(2016)(2017)(2018) aims to reveal the life history of a classical marginal sea through research of the interconnection between tectonic/magmatic, sedimentological, and biochemical processes of the SCS (Wang, 2012). The SCSD Program is currently funding 3D Ocean Bottom Seismometers (OBS) experiments and deep-tow magnetics surveys in the east and southwest sub-basins of the SCS.…”