Yangtze- and Taiwan-derived sediments on the inner shelf of East China Sea

X-ray diffraction (XRD) mineralogical and grain-size analyses indicate that inner continental shelf sediments in the East China Sea (ECS) represent a unique mixing of clays derived from the Yangtze River and silts/sands from small western Taiwanese rivers. Taiwanese (e.g., Choshui) clays (<2 μm) display no smectite but the best illite crystallinity and are only distributed along southeastern Taiwan Strait. Both Yangtze and Taiwanese river clays are illite-dominated, but the poor illite crystallinity and the presence of smectite and kaolinite indicate that Taiwan Strait clays are mainly Yangtze-dominated. In contrast, medium silts (20–35 μm) and very fine sands (63–90 μm) in the Taiwan Strait are characterized by low feldspar/quartz, low K-feldspar/plagioclase and high kaolinite/quartz, indicating their provenance from Taiwanese rivers. Taiwanese silts and sands are introduced primarily by the way of typhoon-derived floods and transported northward by the Taiwan Warm Current during summer–fall months. Yangtze clays, in contrast, are widely dispersed southward about 1000 km to the western Taiwan Strait, transported by the China Coastal Current during winter–spring months. Since most Taiwan Strait samples were collected in May 2006, clay results in this paper might only represent the winter–spring pattern of the dispersal of Yangtze sediments.