The observations on the seasonal fluctuation and distributional characteristic of organic matters on surface sediments and its origin were carried out at the 25 stations in Keogeum-sudo, southern coast of Korean Peninsula from February to October in 1993. I made an analysis on the environmental factors for surface sediments such as temperature, ignition loss, chemical oxygen demand, pheopigment, total sulphide, water content, mud content in grain size, COD/IL ratio and COD/sulphide ratio.
The results are as follows ;
1) The range of temperature on the surface sediments was between 6.2℃ and 24.6℃. The highest mean temperatuer of mud was 24.0℃ in summer, the lowest 6.6℃ in winter.
2) Ignition loss(IL) fluctuated between 1.2% in winter and 16.8% in spring, that is to say, the seasons of increasing in temperature were very high ignition loss.
3) Chemical oxygen demand(COD) showed the highest mean value of 20.52 ㎎/g dry in summer within the range of 15.46∼32.78 ㎎/g dry, while showed the lowest of 5.79 ㎎/g dry in winter within the range of 7.4∼17.39 ㎎/g dry.
4) Pheopigment concentrations showed the highest mean value of 4.85 ㎍/g dry in autumn within the range of 0.84∼9.21 ㎍/g dry, while it did the lowest mean value of 1.97 ㎍/g dry in summer within the range of 0.23∼4.83 ㎍/g dry.
5) Total sulphide (H2S) fluctuated between no detect(ND) in spring, and 2.43 ㎎/g dry in autumn. The highest mean value was 0.68 ㎎/g dry in autumn, the lowest was 0.16 ㎎/g dry in spring.
6) Water content(WC) and mud content in grain size showed the mean value of 43.2% within the range of 26.5∼59.7% and 91.0% within the range of 57.8∼99.2%, respectively.
7) By the analytical results on the source of organic matter, it had been dumped from the seaweed farms in Keogeum-sudo coastal waters.

• 윤양호(여수대학교 해양시스템학부) | Yang Ho Yoon