Figure 1
Maps of: (a) seawater and sediment sampling sites in the China Seas. The red circles and blue squares represent surface seawater and surface sediment sample collection sites, respectively. The sampling locations of surface seawater and surface sediment are cited from previous studies (East China Sea5,13,24,25,26,31,44,45,49; South China Sea6,12,13,28,30,39,76; Yellow Sea26,27,29). (b) a schematic chart of the China Seas surface current: the Kuroshio, and the North Equatorial Current (NEC), represented by the blue dotted lines. In the South China Sea (SCS), the red dashed and black solid lines indicate the anticyclonic gyre in summer and the cyclonic gyre in winter, respectively. In the East China Sea (ECS), the red dashed and black solid lines represent the coastal currents in summer and winter, respectively. We modified this pattern of ocean circluation according to Hu et al.77. Acronyms include: BSCC: Bohai Sea Coastal Current, CDW: Changjiang Diluted Water, KC: Kuroshio Current, MZCC: Min–Zhe Coastal Current, MC: Mindanao Current, NEC: North Equatoral Current, TWC: Taiwan Warm Current, YSWC: Yellow Sea Warm Current. Figure (a) was prepared with Golden software surfer 10.0 (10.0 version, https://www.goldensoftware.com). Figure (b) was drawn using the free software Ocean Data View (ODV 5.1.2) (Schlitzer, R., Ocean Data View, https://odv.awi.de, 2018).
