The South China Sea: Paleoceanography and Sedimentology

Pinxian Wang and Qianyu Li The South China Sea (SCS) (Fig. 1. 1) offers a special attraction for Earth scientists world-wide because of its location and its well-preserved hemipelagic sediments. As the largest one of the marginal seas separating Asia from the Pacific, the largest continent from the largest ocean, the SCS functions as a focal point in land-sea int- actions of the Earth system. Climatically, the SCS is located between the Western Pacific Warm Pool, the centre of global heatin...