A Voyage in the East China Sea 
The first Sino-American oceanographic project in more than 
thirty years investigates sediment discharge in shallow coastal waters 
by John D. Milliman 
China, with its rich cultural and 
political history, has long attracted the 
interest of the Western world. For a 
marine geologist, this vast country 
holds a special fascination since ocean- 
ographic features unique to China 
may be the key to understanding both 
modern and ancient geologic pro- 
cesses. Now, the expansion of relations 
between the United States and China 
is enabling scientists from the two 
countries to join in exploring China’s 
remarkable waters. 
Perhaps the most important feature 
of this kind is the presence of two 
huge rivers that drain much of the 
Chinese countryside — the Chang 
Jiang (Yangtze), the longest river in 
China, and the Hwangho (Yellow), the 
second longest. In terms of sediment 
discharged into the ocean, these rivers 
annually contribute a combined total 
of nearly two billion tons, or about 
15 percent of the total world budget. 
The volume of sediment derived from 
the rivers each year equals about one- 
half of a cubic mile, or about four 
times the total volume of material 
used to construct the Great Wall of 
China. Of the two rivers, the shorter 
Hwangho, although it has a far smaller 
water discharge, has by far the larger 
sediment load, the result of its drain- 
ing the loess plateaus of northern 
China of silt-sized sediments deposited 
during Pleistocene glaciations. The 
fine-grained, easily eroded sediment 
accounts for most of the 1.4 billion 
tons of material carried downriver 
each year to the sea by the Hwangho 
and is what gives the “Yellow River” 
its name. 
The Chang Jiang, while carrying 
a smaller sediment load (about 550 
million tons, nearly twice that of the 
Mississippi), is the fourth largest river 
in the world and not only provides 
China with water for agriculture but 
also serves as a major transportation 
route to the interior of the country. 
Nearly half of China’s one billion peo- 
ple live in the watershed of the Chang 
Jiang, and Shanghai, at the river’s 
mouth, is the country’s major port and 
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