Proposal Number: 98-10758 Institution: Virginia Inst. of Marine Sci.
This project will document the flux and fate of fluvial sediments to (and within) the marine environment. Rivers draining northern New Guinea discharge onto a very narrow shelf (hence most sediment escapes to the deep sea) whereas southern rivers discharge onto a broader shelf (only some of the sediment presumably escapes); this comparative with will be conducted from an Australian oceanographic ship. The effect episodic changes of fluvial sediment supply to the coastal zone will be studied in the vicinity of the Yellow River, in a cooperative research project with scientists at Ocean University and Academia Sinica, both located in Qingdao, China. A final aspect of the study will be the synthesis of existing data, with particular emphasis on environmental factors and events that influence fluvial discharge to the ocean.
