FORMATION AND DEVELOPMENT OF TAIHU LAKE AND RECENT DEPOSITION

Situated in the Taihu plain between the mouth of the Changjiang River and theHangzhou Bay, the Taihu Lake is a large shallow-water lake in China with a surface area of 2427.8 km~2.The lake bottom mainly consists of loess-like sediment. Some buried and silted up channels and residual depressions can be found at the bottom and a lot of Neolithic cultural relics on the loess-like sediment. This indicated that the Taihu Lake was formed on the alluvial plain charaterized by widely deposited loess-like sediment because of siltation and stagnancy of water, instead of by development from lagoons as reported in the past.Recent deposition including influent-effluent current accumulation, wind-driven current and storm deposition in this lake occurred mainly in the south, the west shore and the midst of the lake.The sedimentary rate in the east Taihu Lake is about 1.7-1.8 mm/a, whereas in the west Taihu Lake it is about 0.41 ram/a, only 23％ of that of the former.

FORMATION AND DEVELOPMENT OF TAIHU LAKE AND RECENT DEPOSITION