Identification of sediment provenance of mineral and geochemical elements in the Yangtze River and the Yellow River: a review

Rivers are a primary source of sediment in continental shelf regions, and the identification of sediment provenance in river systems is crucial to understanding the transport processes, sediment flux, and changes in marine sedimentary environments. Detrital and clay mineral composition, along with geochemical elemental characteristics, serve as key tracers for sediment sources. This study compiles source-discrimination indicators from sediment samples of the Yangtze River (YZR) and Yellow River (YER). While qualitative comparisons between the two rivers show some consensus, discrepancies arise due to differences in studied components, grain size selections, and mineral-specific analyses. Additionally, quantifying riverine contributions to marine sediments remains a significant challenge. Future research should focus on characterizing detrital and clay minerals across grain-size fractions, integrated with advanced instruments and techniques to examine single minerals comprehensively (e.g., geochemistry, chronology, and isotopes). Such efforts will enhance the identification of end-member components of riverine sediments, estimate the specific contributions of terrestrial transport materials, and investigate their dispersion and distribution patterns in continental shelf regions. This research provides new insights into the source-to-sink processes of sediment in the East Asian marginal seas.