A Study On The Speciation Of Phosphorus In The Sediments Of The East China Sea And The Yellow Sea

In this study, total phosphorus (TP) and total inorganic phosphorus (IP) in sediment were measured by spectrophotometry from the samples collected in September 2002 in the East China Sea and the Yellow Sea. Organic phosphorus (OP) was determined by difference between TP and IP. The major results can be summarized as follows.The distribution of phosphorus in the sediments from the survey area shows obvious regional characteristics for the complexity variations of the marine environment. The content of phosphorus in the Yangtze River Estuary is the highest in this study, the major form is inorganic phosphorus (IP) which indicating the important role of terrigenous transport. The content of phosphorus in sediment is rather abundance at station A13 which is in the southwestern part of the Yellow Sea adjacent to the north of the Yangtze River estuary because of the tremendous terrigenous input carried by the Changjiang and the Yellow Sea coastal current, the average content of IP occupied more than 83% of TP. The second higher concentration of phosphorus in sediment was observed in the shelf slope of the East China Sea where dominated with clay deposition affected by the Kuroshio. In the upwelling region near the Zhejiang province coast the content of phosphorus is relatively abundance in the sediment. High contents of phosphorus were observed in the area near the Yellow Sea trough controlled by the cold water mass where is apt to accumulate fine particles, and the major form of phosphorus is OP which occupies more than 30% of TP in the upper layer of core sediment. While the content of phosphorus was comparatively low in the centre region of the East China Sea shelf for the input is scarce and the sediment consists mainly of coarse gravel. The lowest content of phosphorus in the sediment was observed in the semi-enclosed Jiaozhou Bay where the input is insufficient.In regions where are mainly affected by the riverine transport, i.g. the...