References

Ocean Science

Ocean Sci.

1812-0792

Copernicus Publications

Göttingen, Germany

10.5194/os-9-631-2013

Image of a subsurface current core in the southern South China Sea

Tang

Q. S.

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9009-3807

¹ Wang

D. X.

² Li

J. B.

³ Yan

¹ Li

Key Laboratory of Marginal Sea Geology, South China Sea Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou 510301, China

State Key Laboratory of Tropical Oceanography, South China Sea Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou 510301, China

Key Laboratory of Submarine Geoscience, Second Institute of Oceanography, State Oceanic Administration, Hangzhou 310012, China

09 07 2013

9 4 631 638

2013

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this licence, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

This article is available from https://os.copernicus.org/articles/9/631/2013/os-9-631-2013.html

The full text article is available as a PDF file from https://os.copernicus.org/articles/9/631/2013/os-9-631-2013.pdf

A legacy seismic transect acquired on 30 and 31 May 2009 in the southern South China Sea (SCS) was reprocessed to reveal the thermohaline structure of the water column. In the study region, a mesoscale subsurface lens with extraordinary features was detected at 113.5° E, 11.5° N. It is centred at 450 m depth, occupies both the subsurface and intermediate water from 250 to 600 m, and has an intersection diameter of around 60 km. The simulated results from Hybrid Coordinate Ocean Model reveal an eddy-induced subsurface current running southwestward along the deep basin edge and suggest that the imaged lens is a snapshot of the subsurface current core rather than a subsurface eddy.

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