CHEMICAL WEATHERING PROCESSES AND ATMOSPHERIC CO2 CONSUMPTION OF HUANGHE RIVER AND CHANGJIANG RIVER BASINS

Rock weathering plays an important role in studying the long-term carbon cycles and global climatic change. According to the statistics analysis, the Huanghe (Yellow) River water chemistry was mainly controlled by evaporite and carbonate weathering, which were responsible for over 90% of total dissolved ions. As compared with the Huanghe River basin, dissolved load of the Changjiang (Yangtze) River was mainly originated from the carbonate dissolution. The chemical weathering rates were estimated to be 39.29t/(km²·a) and 61.58t/(km²·a) by deducting the HCO ₃ ⁻ derived from atmosphere in the Huanghe River and Changjiang River watersheds, respectively. The CO₂ consumption rates by rock weathering were calculated to be 120.84×10³mol/km² and 452.46×10³mol/km²annually in the two basins, respectively. The total CO₂ consumption of the two basins amounted to 918.51×10⁹mol/a, accounting for 3.83% of the world gross. In contrast to other world watersheds, the stronger evaporite reaction and infirm silicate weathering can explain such feature that CO₂ consumption rates were lower than a global average, suggesting that the sequential weathering may be go on in the two Chinese drainage basins. Foundation item: Under the auspices of Ministry of Science and Technology Project of China (No. G1999043075) Biography: LI Jing-ying (1974-), female, a native of Xinye of Henan Province, Ph.D., associate professor, specialized in environmental geochemistry. E-mail: wxxljy2001@public.qd.sd.cn     

MODERN SEDIMENTATION RATES AND SEDIMENTATION FEATURE IN THE HUANGHE RIVER ESTUARY BASED ON ~(210)Pb TECHNIQUE

Based on Pb technique, sedimentation rates of 11 cores collected from the Huanghe River estuary were determined. CaCO3 distribution of 4 cores chosen from among these was measured. Profiles of 210Pb in the cores showed that the distribution of 210Pb activity decayed with depth, appeared in stages and in more than one segment. The sedimentation rates,210Pb and CaCO3 data have similar distribution trend in the 4 cores. Jhe profiles of Pb and CaCO3 were used to study sedimentation in -tensity, transportation trend of material and sedimentation features in the coring area.