| The Yellow Sea (SYS) and East China Sea (ECS) are marginal seas which locateon the east of China. The sources of marine matters in SYS and ECS are complexbecause of the special geographical position and the complex hydrology conditions,which are affected by human and natural activities. The content and distribution ofmetal elements and the other components (such as particulate biogenic silica andparticulate organic carbon) of suspended particulate matter (SPM) are changed duringevery process of SPM in seawater. The interactions between these components andSPM are the very important links in their biogeochemical cycles and SPM plays avery significant role in the processes of biogeochemistry of these components. We canlearn more about the material "source-sink" effect and some information about theinfluencing factors by studying on the chemical composition of these components ofSPM.In order to analyze the distribution and sources of metal elements in SPM, wedetermine the content of particulate biogenic silica (PBSi), particulate organic matter(POM), metal elements (including Al, Ca, Fe, Mg, Mn, Ti, Ba, Cu, Ni, Sr, V and Zn)and P by extracting and digesting the SPM samples which were collected from thesurface and bottom seawater in SYS and ECS during April and May in2009and carryout the enrichment factors and clustering analysis. The main conclusions are asfollows:The content of SPM in the surface seawater (SW) from SYS and ECS in springranged from0.37to33.4mg/L and the average value is2.88mg/L; The content ofSPM in the bottom SW ranged from0.14to43.0mg/L and the average value is6.72mg/L which is higher than the content in surface seawater. The trend is that thecontent of SPM declining from the coastal stations to the stations that are further away from the continent. The content of POM in the surface SW ranged from138to3117μg/L and the average value is752μg/L. The content of POM in the bottom SWranged from71.0to1805μg/L and the average value is557μg/L. The trend is like thetrend of SPM. The content of PBSi in the surface SW ranged from0.03to2.90μmol/L and the average value is0.78μmol/L. The content of PBSi in the bottom SWranged from0.09to5.17μmol/L and the average content is1.33μmol/L. The contentfrom the bottom SW is higher than the one from the surface SW, which is opposite tothe content of POM. The trend of most metal elements of SPM is like the trend ofSPM too.By comparing the P-normalized metal quotas with Ti/P and Ti-normalized metalquotas with P/Ti in SPM, we found that among the typical transects in SYS and ECS,Al, Ti, Fe, V, Ni and Mg are mainly affected by the terrestrial input; P, Ba, Cu and Znare mainly controlled by biological activities; The sources of Ca, Sr and Mn are morecomplex, which is showed as they are controlled by both terrigenous and biogenicparticles. Mn acts as P, Ba, Cu and Zn in03transect. The enrichment factor ofelement Zn is very high among almost all of the stations in the research sea area. SPMand its components show very obviously sea area characteristic: the metal elementsmainly came from terrestrial input in the coastal stations and they are mainlyinfluenced by biological activities in the stations that are further away from continent.At the stations between the tow groups, the metal elements show the complextransitional characteristic. Because the stations locate in the intersectant area ofterrestrial and biological input, the components of SPM are more complex and thefluctuation usually has a wide range. |
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