Hazardous geology and its relationship with environmental evolution in the Pearl River Estuary
珠江口海域灾害地质因素及其与环境变化的关系

The geological environments in the Pearl River Estuary are comparatively complicated and pregnant with hazardous geology factors. High-resolution seismic data, satellite remote sensing, borehole data and systematic survey have been used to examine marine hazardous geologic types and their distributions in the Pearl River Estuary; hazardous geologic maps of the estuary have been completed. The geological hazards are classified into neotectonic, erosive-deposit, fluid-plastic and heterogeneous hazardous geology types, including active fault, earthquake, coastal erosion, coastal accumulation, sand wave, tidal sand ridge, buried paleochannel, shallow gas, erosion gutter, shallow bedrock, among others. The scale of distribution of hazardous geologic types is large; the types of hazardous geology are complex and distributed in almost the whole area. Geologic environmental evolution including neotectonic movement and sea-level change since late Pleistocene decides the formation and regularity of geologic hazards. More attentions should be given to severe hazardous geologic phenomena that can greatly threaten regional economic development and engineering construction.