Detrital mineral characteristics and material source identification in surface sediments of Yalu River estuary and adjacent waters
鸭绿江口及邻近浅海碎屑矿物特征与物源辨识

The Yalu River is the boundary river between China and Democratic People's Republic of Korea. The characteristics of detrital minerals in surface sediments in the Yalu River estuary and its adjacent shallow seas were analyzed in this paper. Through discussing on the compositions, distribution and longitudinal variation of detrital minerals in surface sediments, interpreting the sedimentary environment of detrital minerals and the difference of indicative mineral and characteristic index as well as their trace significance, the results indicated that the surface sediments in the Yalu River estuary and its adjacent shallow seas probably came from different material source zones. For the surface sediments in Middle-river-way and the lower reaches of the Yalu River, their longitudinal variation of main detrital minerals is successive. They are similar to the sediment characteristics in the Aihe River in the lower reaches of the Yalu River in material source zones index, stable coefficient and ATi, which indicates that the sediment process in Middle-river-way and modern rivers have a close relationship. Although West-river-way and Middle-river-way are adjacent, the sediments in West-river-way and Shuifeng Reservoir are similar more or less, which indicates that West-river-way is the key river course, remaining the sediment characteristics before the reservoir was built in 1941. That the sediments in West-river-way most came from the shallow seas offers the obvious evidence that the sediments in shallow seas moved to land areas. The characteristic minerals and other indexes in shallow ford of Liaodong are between those of Middle-river-way and West-river-way, which indicates that its material resource most came from the Yalu River, and less came from shallow seas. The degree of influence from shallow seas needs a further study.