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Evolution of the Pearl River and its Implication for East Asian Continental Landscape Reversion
Author(s) -
ZHANG Hao,
CUI Yuchi,
QIAO Peijun,
ZHAO Meng,
XIANG Xuhong
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
acta geologica sinica ‐ english edition
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.444
H-Index - 61
eISSN - 1755-6724
pISSN - 1000-9515
DOI - 10.1111/1755-6724.14641
Subject(s) - geology , cenozoic , paleontology , aridification , fluvial , earth science , sedimentology , provenance , sedimentary rock , east asia , continental margin , east asian monsoon , plateau (mathematics) , oceanography , monsoon , china , arid , tectonics , geography , archaeology , mathematical analysis , mathematics , structural basin
As the link connecting the South China Continent and the northern South China Sea (SCS), the Pearl River is the focus of sedimentology and petroleum geology research. Its evolutionary process and controlling factors are of great significance in revealing the East Asian continental landscape reorganization during the Late Cenozoic. Based on published data, ‘source‐to‐sink’ provenance analyses allow systematic deliberation on the birth and evolutionary history of the Pearl River. Close to the Oligocene/Miocene boundary, an abrupt shift in the sedimentary composition indicates significant westward and northward expansion of the river's watershed area, followed by the establishment of a near‐modern fluvial network. This sedimentary change generally concurred with a series of regional geological events, including the onset of the Yangtze throughflow, large‐scale development of the loess plateau, and formation of the northwestern arid zone and Asian Monsoon system. These major changes in the geology‐climate‐ecoenvironment system are in close response to the process of the Cenozoic Xizang (Tibetan) Plateau uplift. Consequently, the East Asian continental landscape and most of mid‐Cenozoic drainage systems underwent critical reversion into east‐tilting, or east‐flowing networks.