Abstract
Neogloboquadrina incompta is an optimal marker of the transitional water formed by mixing of the warm Tsushima Current with cold waters of the Japan Sea. Spatial and temporal changes in N. incompta distribution have been analysed to reconstruct the timing and processes by which modern surface-water conditions were established in the Japan Sea as a function of postglacial influx of the Tsushima Current resulting from rising sea levels. The spatiotemporal distribution of N. incompta suggests that transitional water formed in the eastern to southern marginal regions of the Japan Sea prior to the deposition of the K-Ah tephra (7.3 cal. kyr BP) and then expanded southwestward. A northern cold water mass, together with the cold Liman Current, affected the southwestern part of the Japan Sea until 6.9 cal. kyr BP, which may have been a result of the weaker influence of the Tsushima Current during a time of lower sea level.
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