Abstract
The Holocene environmental evolution in coastal area, including deltas and estuaries, is vital to the Neolithic colonization in the eastern China. A 29-m long sediment core XL was obtained from the region between the Taihu Lake and Qiantang Estuary, and multiple analyses on the core sediments have been done to investigate the evolution history of the inner coastal zone of Hangzhou Bay during the Holocene. Six sedimentary facies are identified since the late Pleistocene, including the paleosol at the bottom, overlain by tidal-flat-channel complex (TFC), tidal-distributary-channel (TDC), inner estuarine basin (IEB), subtidal-to-intertidal-flat, and fluvial-plain facies. The TFC and TDC facies are dated to be formed before 8500 cal yr BP, featured by relatively coarse sediments, high magnetic properties and less abundant foraminifera, denoting the tide-influenced setting with large terrestrial inputs. The IEB facies characterized by the most abundant foraminifera fossils and the lowest sediment magnetic properties, is inferred to be deposited during the maximum flooding period between 8500 and 7900 cal yr BP. The branch estuary was then infilled by local sediments with a shallowing-upward subtidal-to-intertidal sequence during 7900–4300 cal yr BP. At last the fluvial plain system developed since no later than 4300 cal yr BP, favouring the rapid development of Neolithic cultures in the region.
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Acknowledgements
This study is financially funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 41501005, 41476031, 41620104004), and supported by China-ASEAN maritime cooperation fund: Comparative study of Holocene Sedimentary Evolution of the Yangtze River Delta and the Red River Delta. Thanks should be extended to Prof. PB Wignall, University of Leeds for his valuable suggestions and comments. We also appreciate the anonymous reviewers for their constructive suggestions on the previous version of this paper.
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Liu, Y., Ma, C., Fan, D. et al. The Holocene Environmental Evolution of the Inner Hangzhou Bay and Its Significance. J. Ocean Univ. China 17, 1301–1308 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11802-018-3562-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11802-018-3562-2