Heavy Minerals in Shelf Sediments off Fujian-Zhejiang Coast of the East China Sea: Their Provenance and Geological Application

To examine the composition and source variations of heavy minerals in the Fujian-Zhejiang mud belt (FZMB) over the past few hundred years, heavy minerals in 150 surficial sediment samples and two sediments cores collected from the southern FZMB were identified and analyzed. The results show that the mineral assemblage of hornblende-magnetite-epidote-chlorite is dominant in the study area. Based on the heavy mineral contents, the study area is divided into two mineral zones, namely a near-shore muddy sediment zone (zone I) and an offshore mixed sediment zone (zone II). The sediments from zone I contains relatively abundant metallic minerals with proximal sediments from the Oujiang River and the Minjiang River as the primary component. The sediment from zone II has relatively low content for minerals from the near-shore materials and is significantly affected by the Oujiang River sediments, and by the flaky minerals from the Yangtze River to a certain extent. The characteristics of heavy minerals in the cores may be affected by a variety of factors. Before the 20th century, under the influence of strong East Asian winter monsoon (EAWM), the sandy sediment in FZMB is significantly affected by the Oujiang River and the Yangtze River sediments, and relatively unaffected by near-shore terrigenous matter. In the 20th century, as the intensity of the Zhejiang-Fujian Coastal Current (ZFCC) decreased, the influence of the Minjiang coastal sand enhanced. Since the 1980s, as the collective effect of relatively weak EAWM and frequent storm surges and typhoons, the impact of the Minjiang River sediments on the FZMB sediments has increased considerably.