Geochemical composition of inner shelf Quaternary sediments in the northern South China Sea with implications for provenance discrimination and paleoenvironmental reconstruction

Sediment samples were collected from a borehole in the northern South China Sea with the depositional age back to 400 ka BP, for grain size and geochemical analyses to constrain the sediment provenance and paleoenvironmental variability. Geochemical indices of Th/Sc, Ti/Nb and Th/Nb ratios suggest that the Zhujiang (Pearl River) was the main provenance of the inner shelf sediments of Hong Kong deposited during interglacial periods, whereas the locally-derived granitoids contributed significantly to the exposed inner shelf through the incision of local streams during glacial periods. Furthermore, the influence of the Zhujiang-derived sediments on the inner shelf of Hong Kong varied spatially and temporally with different sea-level changes during the past 400 kyr. Chemical weathering indices suggest hot and wet climate conditions were dominant in South China during interglacial periods of marine isotope stages (MIS) 7, 9 and 11 whereas a dry and cold paleoclimate prevailed during glacial periods of MIS 6 which accounts for weak chemical weathering and coarse-grained deposition on the inner shelf. The Holocene and last interglacial period did not see more intense chemical weathering in the Zhujiang drainage basin than other interglacial periods. Although the high resolution paleoenvironmental changes can not be easily reconstructed due to ubiquitous unconformity in the sedimentary strata and weak age controls compared to the deep sea sedimentation, the present study sheds new lights on the understanding of the transport process of the Zhujiang sediment in the deep ocean and provides a teleconnection of East Asian palaeomonsoon activity between South China, the inland and open sea areas.