The provenance of the southeastern Yellow Sea sediments constrained by detrital zircon U–Pb age

U–Pb ages of detrital zircon grains collected from sandy sediments in the southeastern Yellow Sea were analyzed to infer their provenance. The zircon age spectra show E–W direction differences with a wide age range from Early Cenozoic to Late Archean; the western samples were dominated by Paleozoic to Neoproterozoic zircons, whereas the eastern samples by Paleoproterozoic zircons. This age distribution suggests diversity of age populations in the source terranes and changes in sediment supply to the sample locations. Comparison of these results with the basement rock geology and detrital zircon ages of river sediments in the surrounding land areas indicates that the eastern and western parts of the southeastern Yellow Sea sandy sediments were mainly supplied from the Korean Peninsula and southern China along with now-submerged shelf bedrocks, respectively, with a mixing zone in the middle. Differences in zircon age populations resulted from the change of proportions in sediment supply from two dominant provenances due to sea-level rising and associated reworking during the Holocene transgression.