| Abstract: | In north of Taiwan the East China Sea Shelf extends from the coastline of mainland China to the southern Okinawa Trough, showing a shelf-slope-basin bathymetric profile. Sea floor of the East China Sea Shelf is generally smooth and flat. It is wide (230 km) and relatively shallow with an average shelf-break depth of 120 m, reflecting the effect of Quaternary glaciation about 15000 years ago. The Pliocene-Quaternary East China Sea Shelf is underlain by thin sequences of about 1000 m thick shallow marine sediments mainly derived from China, forming an eastward dipping sedimentary wedge due to regional tilting and subsidence and representing the youngest part of the Cenozoic rift margin in southeastern China. The Taiwan Strait Shelf has two phases in development: one is the early phase of the Paleocene-Miocene rift margin and the other is the late stage of the Pliocene-Quaternary foreland sedimentation. It is a foreland shelf and its present morphology results from the combined effects of tectonic subsidence and sedimentation overprinting that of the Late Pleistocene glaciation about 15000 years ago. |
