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Clay mineral distribution and provenance in the Heuksan mud belt, Yellow Sea

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Abstract

The Heuksan mud belt (HMB), located in the southeastern Yellow Sea, runs parallel to the southwest coast of Korea. In this study, the distribution and relative contribution of four major clay minerals are investigated using 101 surface sediment samples collected in the course of KIOST (2001, 2010, 2011) and KIGAM (2012) cruises, as well as 33 river sediment samples (four from the Huanghe River, three from the Changjiang River, and 26 from Korean rivers) in order to clarify the provenance of fine-grained sediments in the HMB. Based on this currently largest and most robust dataset available for interpretation, the clay mineral assemblages of the fine-grained sediments in the HMB are found to be on average composed of 64.7% illite, 17.9% chlorite, 11.4% kaolinite, and 5.9% smectite. Overall, the clay mineral assemblages are similar in both the northern and the southern parts of the HMB, although smectite seems to be relatively enriched in the southern part, whereas kaolinite is slightly more dominant in the northern part. This clearly indicates that the clays are mostly derived from Korean rivers and, in the southern part of the HMB, partly also from the Huanghe River in China. The new data thus confirm and strengthen the tentative interpretation of some earlier work based on a more limited dataset.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank J.H. Lim and J.S. Lee for their assistance in laboratory analysis of clay minerals. This study was supported by the Basic Science Research Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (2011-0021964; HGC), by the Atmospheric See-At Technology Development Program (grant no. KMIPA 2015-6060; BKK), and partly by basic research project (GP2015-040; HSC) of KIGAM.. We acknowledge two anonymous reviewers and the editor in chief Burg Flemming for constructive comments which improved this article.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest with third parties.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geology and Research Institute of Natural Science, Gyeongsang National University, Jinju, 660-701, Republic of Korea

    Hyen Goo Cho, Soon-Oh Kim & Kyeong Yoon Kwak

  2. Petroleum and Marine Research Division, Korea Institute of Geoscience and Mineral Resources, Daejeon, 305-350, Republic of Korea

    Hunsoo Choi

  3. Department of Oceanography, Pusan National University, Busan, 609-735, Republic of Korea

    Boo-Keun Khim

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  1. Hyen Goo Cho
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Correspondence to Boo-Keun Khim.

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Cho, H.G., Kim, SO., Kwak, K.Y. et al. Clay mineral distribution and provenance in the Heuksan mud belt, Yellow Sea. Geo-Mar Lett 35, 411–419 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00367-015-0417-3

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