Journal of Tropical Oceanography ›› 2026, Vol. 45 ›› Issue (5): 80-93.doi: 10.11978/2025246CSTR: 32234.14.2025246

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Microfossils in the Neogene carbonate platform of Nansha Islands and their significance*

SU Xiang1,2(), XIANG Rong1,2(), YI Liang3, ZHANG Qiang1,2, ZHANG Yanan4, QIN Guoquan5, WAN Sui1,2, YAN Wen1,2,6()   

  1. 1 South China Sea Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, State Key Laboratory of Tropical Oceanography, Guangzhou 511458, China
    2 South China Sea Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Laboratory of Ocean and Marginal Sea Geology, Guangzhou 511458, China
    3 State Key Laboratory of Marine Geology, Tongji University, Shanghai 200092, China
    4 Guangzhou Institute of Geochemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, State Key Laboratory of Deep Earth Processes and Resources, Guangzhou 510640, China
    5 CNOOC South China Sea Eastern Petroleum Corporation, Guangzhou 510240, China
    6 University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
  • Received:2025-12-20 Revised:2026-02-07 Online:2026-09-10 Published:2026-10-13
  • Contact: XIANG Rong. email: rxiang@scsio.ac.cn; YAN Wen. email: wyan@scsio.ac.cn
  • Supported by:
    National Key Research and Development Program of China(2021-06); National Key Research and Development Program of China(2022-24); National Natural Science Foundation of China(42476066)

Abstract:

Biogenic reefs are among the most productive and biodiverse ecosystems, and are critical to global carbon cycling. The South China Sea (SCS) has developed the largest carbonate platforms in the Western Pacific. The fully-cored Well NK-1, drilled through the reef complex on the Meiji Atoll, Nansha Islands, offers a good opportunity for assessing the long-term evolution of biogenic reefs in the SCS. To reveal the evolution history of Nansha Islands and their controlling factors, more credible age constraints on core NK-1 are needed. This research presents new records of microfossils (calcareous nannofossils, foraminifera and radiolarians) abundances and diversities in the biogenic reef carbonates of core NK-1. Based on the assemblages of the microfossils, seven biostratigraphic events are recognized from the sequence of core NK-1, revealing a general continuous succession of the Early Miocene to Pleistocene age. Combined with the magnetostratigraphic data, the development and evolution of carbonate platform in the Nansha Islands are reconstructed. The bottom age of the biogenic reef sequence of NK-1 is estimated at (23.03 ± 1.06) Ma, close to the Oligocene/Miocene boundary. The new chronostratigraphic framework highlights three short hiatuses of 3.6—2.4 Ma, 11.1—10.0 Ma, and 13.5—11.9 Ma, which are well correlated with the prominent exposed surfaces at 210.3 m, 464.6 m and 561.6 m, respectively. These records reveal a remarkably similar evolutionary history of carbonate platforms in the SCS since Neogene, by comparison with stratigraphic records and growth rates from deep drilling cores on isolated coral reefs in Nansha and Xisha Islands. The results show that carbonate platform development in the SCS experienced five phases: Late Oligocene / Early Miocene initiation phase, Early-Middle Miocene rapid growth phase, Middle-Late Miocene erosion phase, Miocene-Pliocene stable development phase, and Quaternary rapid growth phase, which were mainly influenced by global sea-level changes, environmental factors and regional tectonism such as the SCS basin spreading, the Sabah Orogeny and the Dongsha Movement.

Key words: carbonate platform, microfossils, tectonic movement, sea-level change, South China Sea

CLC Number: 

  • P736.221