• The Sea:JOURNAL OF THE KOREAN SOCIETY OF OCEANOGRAPHY
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.66-75
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• 2014

This study aims to understand environmental factors that determine spatial distribution of macrozoobenthic community in the southern area (ca 100-500 m depth) of East Sea, Korea, known as a candidate site for carbon storage under the seabed. From sixteen locations sampled in the summer of 2012, a total of 158 species were identified, showing density of $843indiv/m^2$ and biomass of $26.2g\;WW/m^2$, with increasing faunal density towards biologically higher diverse locations. Principal component analysis showed that a total of 33 environmental parameters were reduced to three principal components (PC), indicating sediment, bottom water, and depth, respectively. As sand content was increasing, number of species increased but biomass decreased. Six dominant species including two bivalve species favored high concentrations of ${\Omega}$ aragonite and ${\Omega}$ calcite, indicating that the corresponding species can be severely damaged by ocean acidification or $CO_2$ effluent. Cluaster analysis based on more than 1% density dominant species classified the entire study area into four faunal assemblage (location groups), which were delineated by characteristic species, including (A) Ampelisca miharaensis, (B) Edwardsioides japonica, (C) Maldane cristata, (D) Spiophanes kroeyeri, and clearly separated in terms of geography, bottom water and sediment environment. Overall, a discriminant function model was developed to predict four faunal assemblages from five simply-measured environmental variables (depth, sand content in sediment, temperature, salinity and pH in bottom water) with 100% accuracy, implying that benthic faunal assemablages are closed linked to certain combinations of abiotic factors.

• Korean Journal of Environmental Biology
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• v.24 no.1 s.61
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• pp.67-80
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• 2006

The effect of environmental forcing on picophytoplankton distribution pattern was investigated in the tropical and subtropical western Pacific (TSWP) and the East Sea in September, 2002, and the continental shelf of the East China Sea (C-ECS) in August, 2003. The abundance of picophytoplankton populations, Synechococcus, Prochlorococcus and picoeukaryotes were determined by flow cytometry analyses. Picophytoplankton vertical profiles and integrated abundance $(0\sim100\;m)$ were compared with these three physiochemically different regions. Variation patterns of integrated cell abundance of Synechococcus and Prochlorococcus in these three regions showed contrasting results. Synechococcus showed average abundance of $84.5X10^{10}\;cells\;m^{-2}$, in the TSWP, $305.6X10^{10}\;cells\;m^{-2}$ in the C-ECS, and $125.4X10^{10}\;cells\; m^{-2}$ in the East Sea where increasing cell concentrations were observed in the region with abundant nutrient. On the other hand, Prochlorococcus showed average abundance of $504.5X10^{10}\;cells\;m^{-2}$ in the TSWP, $33.2x10^{10}\;cells\;m^{-2}$ in the C-ECS, and $130.2X10^{10}\;cells\;m^{-2}$ in the East Sea exhibiting a distinctive pattern of increasing cell abundance in oligotrophic warm water. Although picoeukaryotes showed a similar pattern to Synechococcus, the abundance was 1/10 of Synechococcus. Synechococcus and picoeukaryotes showed ubiquitous distribution whereas Prochlorococcus generally did not appear in the C-ECS and the East Sea with low salinity environment. The average depth profiles for Synechococcus and Prochlorococcus displayed uniform abundance in the surface mixed layer with a rapid decrease below the surface mixed layer. for Prochlorococcus, a similar rapid decreasing trend was not observed below the surface mixed layer of the TSWP, but Prochlorococcus continued to show high cell abundance even down to 100 m depth. Picoeukaryotes showed uniform abundance along $0\sim100\;m$ depth in the C-ECS, and abundance maximum layer appeared in the East Sea at $20\sim30\;m$ depth.

• Korean Journal of Mineralogy and Petrology
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.15-29
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• 2021

In the Arctic Ocean, the distribution of sea ice and ice sheets changes as climate changes. Because the distribution of ice cover influences the mineral composition of marine sediments, studying marine sediments transported by sea ice or iceberg is very important to understand the global climate change. This study analyzes marine sediment samples collected from the Arctic Ocean and infers the provenance of the sediments to reconstruct the paleoenvironment changes of the western Arctic. The analyzed samples include four gravity cores collected from the Araon mound in the Chukchi Plateau and one gravity core collected from the slope between the Araon mounds. The core sediments were brown, gray, and greenish gray, each of which corresponds to the characteristic color of sediments deposited during the interglacial/glacial cycle in the western Arctic Ocean. We divide the core sediments into three units based on the analysis of bulk mineral composition, clay mineral composition, and Ice Rafted Debris (IRD) as well as comparison with previous study results. Unit 3 sediments, deposited during the last glacial maximum, were transported by sea ice and currents after the sediments of the Kolyma and Indigirka Rivers were deposited on the continental shelf of the East Siberian Sea. Unit 2 sediments, deposited during the deglacial period, were from the Kolyma and Indigirka Rivers flowing into the East Siberian Sea as well as from the Mackenzie River and the Canadian Archipelago flowing into the Beaufort Sea. Unit 2 sediments also contained an extensive amount of IRD, which originated from the melted Laurentide Ice Sheet. During the interglacial stage, fine-grained sediments of Unit 1 were transported by sea ice and currents from Northern Canada and the East Siberian Sea, but coarse-grained sediments were derived by sea ice from the Canadian Archipelago.