The sedimentation rate of the sediment drift to the southeast of the Dongsha Islands has been as high as 49 cm/ka in the last 1.05 Ma. Although the sedimentation rate has changed over time, the rare element content of the sediments has remained almost the same, indicating that the source area of the sediments has been constant with time. On triangular diagrams of La-Th-Sc and Th-Sc-Zr/l0, the samples from southeast of the Dongsha Islands fall within the continental island arc field, overlapping samples from Taiwan, while the samples from the Pearl River, those from the west of the Philippines that contain volcanic material, are separated from them. This indicates that the sediments from southeast of the Dongsha Islands are closely related to those from Taiwan in terms of provenance. In fact, the sediments on the northern slope of the South China Sea came from a northeast direction, as well as from Taiwan, and were most probably transported from Taiwan through the Penghu Channel into the South China Sea. The terrigenous part of the deep-sea sediments in the north of the South China Sea was provided by different sources.