Geological Carbon Burial Capacity Of The Coast And Inner Shelf Of The Yellow Sea

The ocean is the largest source and sink of CO2 which plays an important role in global environment and climate change, and the deposition of organic carbon(for short, TOC) caused by the ocean processes forms the final net effect of the ocean carbon sink in a certain time scale, previous researches results show that about 80%TOC are buried in estuarine, coastal zones and the continental shelf sediments. The coastal zone and continental shelf are both the resourse and sink of CO2, which impresses a dynamic process. We strengthen researches deeply in the global carbon circulation, especially the TOC buried with sedimentation caused by the biological process, fall into the geological cycle, become into the sink of the global carbon circulation. Therefore, the researches of the carbon reserves in the coastal zones and continental shelf contribute to an understanding of the destiny of anthropogenic CO2 under the current background of the global climate change, it also has a great significance for further understanding the marine carbon circulation and further to the global carbon circulation.This paper focus on the researches of the typical coastal zones along the South Yellow Sea(the Dagu river and the coastal plain south of Lianyungang) and its western inner shelf, to analyse the carbon burial capacity, to discuss its contribution to the carbon sink, to understand how the geological process influence the marine carbon circulation, lay a foundation for further dynamic analysis.By the analysis and statistics of the 3 short columnar sample in the modern Dagu estuarine and coastal wetland, contains the particle size and TOC contents, combined with the 210 Pb and 210 Cs dating results, estimated the modern organic carbon burial flux and the TOC buried during the Holocene. The results suggested the TOC storage is 2.27 GgC in dagu estuary wetland(31 km2), theTOC burial flux is 84.8 gC/m2·yr in wetland marsh environment, theTOC burial flux is 69.9 gC/m2·yr in mudflat environment, the total TOC burial is about 1.58 TgC.Through the AMS 14 C dating, grain size and TOC results in the old coastal wetland(located in the south of Lianyungang city), it is estimated that the TOC burial flux is 35.69 gC/m2·yr Combined with the sedimentary strata thickness, Holocene sediment volume of 7.473km3 with surface area of 687 km2 carried TOC storage 46.78 TgC.We collected and analyzed the relevant data contained the drilling cores, columnar sample and the Holocene strata thickness in the western South Yellow Sea. According the strata thickness, deposition rate and organic carbon content, we devided the studying area into three subareas respectively: RegionⅠ(the Old Yellow River Delta Area, 30,000km2), theTOC burial flux is 89.02 gC/m2·yr, the total TOC storage is 1833.95 TgC during the Holocene; RegionⅡ(the south tip of the Shandong Pennisula offshore mud body and the ebb-tidal delta out ofthe Jiaozhou Bay, 1,900km2), theTOC burial flux is 37.73 gC/m2·yr, the total TOC storage is 147.11 TgC; RegionⅢ( avst area of the south Yellow Sea inner shelf with thin Holocene layer and low organic carboncontent, 29,300km2), theTOC burial flux is 0.9 gC/m2·yr, the total TOC storage is 132.3 TgC during the Holocene. Totally,the TOC storage is 2,113.36 TgC in the western South Yellow Sea inner shelf during the Holocene.