Earth Science Frontiers ›› 2022, Vol. 29 ›› Issue (5): 102-118.DOI: 10.13745/j.esf.sf.2021.9.18

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Source-sink processes, paleoenvironment and paleomonsoon evolution in the Northeast Indian Ocean

GUAN Yulong1(), CHEN Liang2,3,*(), JIANG Zhaoxia1,4, LI Sanzhong1,4, XIAO Chunfeng1, CHEN Long1   

  1. 1. College of Marine Geosciences/Frontiers Science Center for Deep Ocean Multispheres and Earth System/MOE Key Lab of Submarine Geosciences and Prospecting Techniques, Ocean University of China, Qingdao 266100, China
    2. South China Sea Marine Survey and Technology Center, State Oceanic Administration, Guangzhou 510300, China
    3. Key Laboratory of Marine Environmental Survey Technology and Application, Ministry of Natural Resources, Guangzhou 510300, China
    4. Laboratory for Marine Mineral Resources, Qingdao National Laboratory for Marine Science and Technology, Qingdao 266237, China
  • Received:2021-04-10 Revised:2021-07-25 Online:2022-09-25 Published:2022-08-24
  • Contact: CHEN Liang

Abstract:

The Northeast Indian Ocean (NIO) sits at a unique geographical location, where marine sediments record the source-sink processes in the Tibetan Plateau-Bengal fan, the sea-air interaction during the Indian and Asian monsoon season, and the phase relationship between the evolution of heat transfer in the Indian Pacific Warm Pool and the high-latitude climate. It records as well the climate-tectonics-sedimentation (CTS) coupling evolution in the Himalayas, and is an ideal window to study multi-sphere interactions and explore paleoclimate and paleoenvironmental changes. This paper summarizes a series of research advances in recent years on the characteristics of monsoon and surface circulation, sediment composition and provenance, climate and environmental changes, and magnetic records of the NIO. The analysis shows that the NIO is a typical monsoon wind field where the surface circulation is strongly influenced by monsoons and obviously different between summer and winter. The sediment includes terrigenous detritus zircon ransported by rivers, calcareous and siliceous biodeposits and volcanic materials. However, there are still disagreements over the regional sediment composition, source-sink processes, migration history, monsoon evolution as well as the relationship between the Tibetan Plateau uplift and high-latitude climate change in the NIO. In addition, limited by sampling issues and weak magnetic signal, environmental magnetism, a widely accepted method for sediment source tracing and paleoclimate and paleoenvironmental restoration, has not been fully developed and applied in the NIO. Therefore, it is necessary to extend research focus further south and deeper into the NIO region and conduct a comprehensive analysis of its source-sink processes in the future. In order to solve the regional climate and environmental problems such as monsoon evolution and paleomarine environmental change, and advance local environmental and climate research, method developments are needed, which include improving high precision techniques to extract magnetic signals, and finding effective proxy indicators to increase application of environmental magnetism. Also, it is very important to establish high-resolution paleosecular variation (PSV) records for revising the global geomagnetic field model and exploring the deep dynamic process of the Earth in the NIO.

Key words: Northeast Indian Ocean, provenance, paleoenvironment, plateau uplift, monsoon evolution, environmental magnetism

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