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Organic Carbon Deposition on the Inner Shelf of the East China Sea Constrained by Sea Level and Climatic Changes Since the Last Deglaciation

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Abstract

The East China Sea (ECS), which is located in the transitional zone between land and ocean, is the main site for the burial of sedimentary organic carbon. Despite good constraints of the modern source to the sinking process of organic carbon, its fate in response to changes in climate and sea level since the last deglaciation remains poorly understood. We aim to fill this gap by presenting a high-resolution sedimentary record of core EC2005 to derive a better understanding of the evolution of the depositional environment and its control on the organic deposition since 17.3 kyr. Our results suggest that sedimentary organic carbon was deposited in a terrestrial environment before the seawater reached the study area around 13.1 kyr. This significant transition from a terrestrial environment to a marine environment is reflected by the decrease in TOC/TN and TOC/TS ratios, which is attributed to deglacial sea level rise. The sea level continued to rise until it reached its highstand at approximately 7.3 kyr when the mud depocenter was developed. Our results further indicate that the deposition of the sedimentary organic carbon could respond quickly to abrupt cold events, including the Heinrich stadial 1 and the Younger Dryas during the last deglaciation, as well as ‘Bond events’ during the Holocene. We propose that the rapid response of the organic deposition to those cold events in the northern hemisphere is linked to the East Asian winter monsoon. These new findings demonstrate that organic carbon deposition and burial on the inner shelf could effectively document sea level and climatic changes.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 41976053) and the Shandong Province Funds for Excellent Young Scholars (No. ZR2021YQ26).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Submarine Geosciences and Prospecting Technology, College of Marine Geosciences, Ocean University of China, Qingdao, 266100, China

    Mingyu Zhang, Xiting Liu, Yu Gu, Xin Chang, Naishuang Bi & Houjie Wang

  2. Laboratory for Marine Geology, Qingdao National Laboratory for Marine Science and Technology, Qingdao, 266061, China

    Xiting Liu, Naishuang Bi & Houjie Wang

  3. College of Marine Science, Hainan University, Haikou, 570228, China

    Fangjian Xu

  4. Key Laboratory of Marine Geology and Environment, Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Qingdao, 266071, China

    Anchun Li & Kaidi Zhang

  5. Key Laboratory of Marine Chemistry Theory and Technology, Ministry of Education, Ocean University of China, Qingdao, 266100, China

    Guangchao Zhuang

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  1. Mingyu Zhang
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  2. Xiting Liu
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  3. Fangjian Xu
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  5. Yu Gu
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  6. Xin Chang
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  7. Guangchao Zhuang
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  8. Kaidi Zhang
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  9. Naishuang Bi
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  10. Houjie Wang
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Correspondence to Xiting Liu or Fangjian Xu.

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Zhang, M., Liu, X., Xu, F. et al. Organic Carbon Deposition on the Inner Shelf of the East China Sea Constrained by Sea Level and Climatic Changes Since the Last Deglaciation. J. Ocean Univ. China 22, 1300–1312 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11802-023-5476-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11802-023-5476-x

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