• Journal of The Geomorphological Association of Korea
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.97-108
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• 2012

During the last few decades, the ever-increasing knowledge of coastal morphogenic processes has made marine terraces the most recognizable, widespread and scientifically reliable records to determine both qualitatively and quantitatively the vertical movements that have affected the tectonically active coastal regions during the Quaternary. This study first aims to address the marine terrace records from Suje-ri to Suryum-ri along the coast of Gyeongju, SE Korea. Eight distinct flights of terraces, including HH YC, elevated up to 160 m above present sea level have been mapped along the coast of the study areas, and are designated $L_{II}$ to HH YC from the youngest to oldest. Based on the elevation of paleo-shoreline and inferred formation age for HH YC uplift rate since the middle Pleistocene has been estimated at 0.23 mm/year. Establishing the nature and timing of the uplift history derived from marine terraces provide a better understanding of neotectonic framework for explain enigmatic, complex landscape evolution in the Korean peninsula.

• Journal of the Korean Geophysical Society
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• v.7 no.3
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• pp.225-232
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• 2004

To investigate the depositional environment and the geological structure of the Jeju Basin in the South Sea of Korea, we acquired 54-channel seismic data of about 1,980 line-km. The study area lies at the northeastern part of the East China Sea Trough, a Tertiary back-arc basin. The sedimentary basin formed by rifted activities resulted in the formation of graben and/or half-graben structures. The basin is composed of pre-rift, syn-rift and post-rift sediments bounded by regional unconformity. The pre-rift and syn-rift sediments consist of Oligocene, Early and Middle Miocene sequence, whereas the post-rift sediments consist of Late Miocene and Plio-Pleistocene sequences. Seismic and well data from the Jeju Basin indicate that Oligocene-Miocene sediments were deposited under fluvial and lacustrine depositional conditions. Following compressional tectonic movements in the Late Miocene time and a subsequent period of erosion, regional subsidence during the Pliocene time brought the Jeju Basin under marine conditions, resulting in the deposition of dominantly marine sediments.

• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.206-214
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• 2004

The purpose of this paper is to elucidate the formation process of the Second Mujechi Moor at Mt. Jeongjok. For doing so, 1 analysed the formation process of valley which moor is located in, and the formation process of block field damming the valley: First, it is not a valley but a hollow which the Second Mujechi Moor located in. Hollow was formed as weathering bedrock weathered deeply along joints under warm and wet climatic conditions was denudated by rain wash. Second, the Second Mujechi Moor had been a marginal lake. Block stream developed during the last glacial period of Pleistocene, and it dammed the mouth of hollow. Afterwards sediments transported from slope filled the marginal lake, thus the lake changed to the moor where aquatic plants could grown. Third, the Second Mujechi Moor is drained and dried out by removal of matrix material from the block stream dam of the mouth of moor. For keeping moor's present conditions, we must control moor's drainage by filling open space in block stream with fine material.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.26 no.8
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• pp.828-835
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• 2005

The purpose of this study is to clarify the landform development of fluvial terrace and the soil characteristics occurring on the terrace deposit. In order to achieve the purpose, the characteristics of soil profiles, the physic-chemical properties of soils that are developed on terrace deposits and X-ray diffraction analysis of clay were investigated. The horizon of Al in the high fluvial surface is silt clay loam of red (2YR 4/6). The soil structure is a developed granular structure. The horizon of B1 is silt clay reddish-brown (2.5YR 4/6). The soil structure is a medium subangular blocky structure. This red soil structure is made on heavy textured and compactly packed parent materials of high terrace sediments and usually has A-B-C profile. In most cases, clay accumulations in B-horizon and clay cutans on ped surfaces are observed, which mean the formation of agrillic horizon. As the result of this study, soils derived from fluvial terrace deposits on high fluvial surfaces are considered paleo-red soil which were developed by pedogenese-strong desilicification and rubefaction and strong leaching of bases- under warmer bio-climatic condition during in the old Pleistocene period.

• Animal Systematics, Evolution and Diversity
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.279-290
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• 2012

Plecoglossus altivelis (ayu) is an amphidromous fish widely distributed in Northeastern Asia from the East China Sea to the northern Japanese coastal waters, encompassing the Korean Peninsula within its range. The shore lines of northeastern region in Asia have severely fluctuated following glaciations in the Quaternary. In the present study, we investigate the population genetic structure and historical demographic change of P. altivelis at a population level in East Asia. Analysis of molecular variance (AMOVA) based on 244 mitochondrial control region DNA sequences clearly showed that as the sampling scope extended to a larger geographic area, genetic differentiation began to become significant, particularly among Northeastern populations. A series of hierarchical AMOVA could detect the genetic relationship of three closely located islands between Korea and Japan that might have been tightly connected by the regional Tsushima current. Neutrality and mismatch distribution analyses revealed a strong signature of a recent population expansion of P. altivelis in East Asia, estimated at 126 to 391 thousand years ago during the late Pleistocene. Therefore it suggests that the present population of P. altivelis traces back to its approximate demographic change long before the last glacial maximum. This contrasts our a priori expectation that the most recent glacial event might have the most crucial effect on the present day demography of marine organisms through bottleneck and subsequent increase of effective population size in this region.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.239-246
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• 1985

Uranium-thorium separation technique from shallow sediment and ${\alpha}$-source electrodeposition technique are established in the present work, and uranium series disequilibrium dating method is applied to the quaternary piston core from Sangback-do, South Sea of Korean Peninsula. The age of the piston core (depth 200~300cm) sampled from Latitude $34^{\circ}06^{\prime}37^{{\prime}{\prime}}$, Longitude $127^{\circ}37^{\prime}37^{{\prime}{\prime}}$ was determined as ranging from $9.0{\pm}2.2$ to $22.9{\pm}3.3$ Ky B.P, i.e., Later Pleistocene, older than Holocene which was stratigraphically known in the previous study. The sedimentation rate in the area is regularly increased according to the depth of the sedimentation layer. Except a few split sections of the piston core the sedimentation rates are avarage 7.2cm/1,000 years. Where sedimentation layer is deeper, then sedimentation rate tend to be slower. It must be pointed in age calculation that initial $^{230}Th/^{234}U$ radioactivity ratio is much influenced when detrital material was introduced in the sample. The $^{230}Th/^{234}U$ activity ratio measured in the present work is 0.06 at $^{232}Th=0$, and this value shows higher analytical errors because of the low· radioactivity of $^{230}Th$ in the samples.

• Korean Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.386-392
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• 1996

A numerical method based on genetic algorithms was introduced to characterize the grain-size distribution more effectively. This technique was proved significant particularly for multimodal size distributions, as was verified for samples from Korea Strait continental shelf. Sediment samples collected from the Korea Strait continental shelf revealed that $96\%$ of the grain-size distributions were multimodal. Therefore, the use of grain-size parameters was not the ideal method. As an alternative method, the decomposition of sue curves into elementary normal component curves was used. Means and standard deviations of 593 decomposed normal components were calculated by a numerical method from 268 size curves of Korea Strait sediments. The mean values of decomposed normal components showed peaks at $1\~3\phi\;and\;7\~9\phi$ size classes. The plot of mean and standard deviation values of the coarse fraction normal components on the map showed a characteristic areal distribution. The characteristic distribution was found to derive from underlying Pleistocene sediment on the basis of sea bottom geologic distribution of the area. The method of decomposition into normal components was found to be more effective than the analysis using traditional grain-size parameters in investigation of multimodal size distribution of Korea Strait shelf sediment.

• The Sea:JOURNAL OF THE KOREAN SOCIETY OF OCEANOGRAPHY
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• v.6 no.3
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• pp.135-141
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• 2001

A paleomagnetic investigation was carried out to analyze magnetostratigraphic information and to evaluate the relationship between paleoenvironment and magnetic properties in sedimentary sequences of piston cores recovered from the abyssal basin of the southwestern Pacific. Pateomagnetic results revealed that the sediments had a stable remanent magnetization and recorded both normal and reversal polarities. The age of sediments was from late Pliocene and Pleistocene determined by matching the polarities with the geomagnetic time scale. The sedimentation rates were in the range of 0.63-1.85 mm/$10^3$ year which were extremely low rates. The results of the paleomagnetic analyses indicated that intervals of the magnetically stable layers as well as high value of susceptibility were significantly affected by the input changes which resulted input of large-quantity materials of relatively stable magnetic carriers.

• The Korean Journal of Zoology
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• v.32 no.2
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• pp.75-83
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• 1989

Surveys of electrophoretic variation in isozymes and general proteins encoded by 26 loci were conducted to assess species recognition and to estimate the degree of genic variation and species divergence for seven species of the genus Moroco inhabiting in Korea and Japan. Estimates of the average calculated heterozygosity per species of M semotilus, M sp., M percnurus, M lagowskii, M oxycephalus, M steindachneri and M jouyf are low: 0.021, 0.019, 0.051, 0.031, 0.023, 0.046, and 0.007, respectively, and observed heterozygosities are 0.038, 0.022, 0.060, 0.027, 0.025, 0.042, and 0.002, respectively. Allozyme analyses show these species to be distinct genetically with the lafter four species being more closely related one another than any one of them is to the rest of the species. However, these four species (M. lagowskii, M. oxycephalus, M. steindachneri and M jouyi), had unique genetic markers in each species to be recognized as valid species. These results contrast to the previous report of Chung et of. (1986) mainly due to their error in analyzing the isozyme pallems, particularly in MDH and PGI analyses. The genetic distances among M semotilus, M sp., and M percnurus are near the high end of the scale of such estimate for freshwater fish congeners. Based on estimated divergent time of these species of the genus Moroco (5 to 0.6 million years) it is assumed that they are speciated during late Pliocene to middle Pleistocene epoch prior to migration to Korean and Japanese waters through Paleo Amur River system.

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.43 no.4
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• pp.495-510
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• 2008

Vaccinium vitis-idaea or lingonberry, a typical arctic-alpine plant, is common on the circumpolar regions and alpine belts of the Northern Hemisphere, and also occurs on the alpine and subalpine belts of the Korean Peninsula, including Mt. Sorak and Hongchon. Vaccinium vitis-idaea at the elevation of c. 350m a.s.l. of Hongchon is found on the wind hole area with cool summer, and mild winter. Vaccinium vitis-idaea at Hongchon is regarded as the glacial relict of the Pleistocene period, and shows a disjunctive distribution, along with the alpine and subalpine belts of the northern and central Korea since the Holocene period. Present vertical range of Vaccinium vitis-idaea between Mt. Sorak and Hongchon might indicates that the temperatures during the glacial epoch was colder than today, down to -6 to $-7^{\circ}C$ Vaccinium vitis-idaea at this fragile wind hole site could be endanger if current global warming trends continues, and anthropogenic activities become serious.