巽他陆架——淹没的亚马逊河盆地?

The Sunda Shelf——A Submerged Amazon Basin?

古气候研究中一个关键性的争论问题,是陆地植被及其碳库在冰期旋回里的作用。今天亚马逊河盆地发育着全球最大的热带雨林,也是陆地上重大的碳库,而在冰期时东南亚的巽他陆架出露成陆,形成又一个巨大的热带雨林,引起全球碳循环的重大变化。为此,需要在巽他陆架进行大洋钻探,揭示近几百万年来该热带地区的海面升降、河系发育、植被与碳库演变,以及生物地理的历史。

A crucial and debatable issue in paleoclimatology is the change of terrestrial vegetation and the role of its carbon storage in glacial cycles. In the modem world, the Amazon Basin hosts the largest tropical rainforest and plays a major role of carbon sink, but during the glacial times another large tropical rainforest must have formed in the then emerged Snnda Shelf, SE Asia, and significantly changed the global carbon cycling. Accordingly, o- cean drilling expeditions to the Sunda Shelf are being proposed in order to investigate the sea level changes, evolu- tion of river network, vegetation and carbon storage, as well as biogeography of the tropical region over the last mil- lions of years.