After the Second World War, with the military demand and the exploration and development of mineral resources such as seabed oil, great progress has been made in the study of marine sediments. People began to conduct special investigations and studies on specific sea areas and major theoretical topics. In the late 1940s, the monographs on marine geology by F.P. Shepard and M.B. Kleinova came out one after another, which systematically summarized the understanding of marine sediments at that time. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, due to large-scale international cooperation and the application of new technologies and methods, the study of marine sediments has reached a new level. Especially in the study of seabed sedimentary minerals, turbidite deposits, modern carbonate deposits and continental shelf sedimentary models, many new understandings have been obtained.
The deep-sea drilling plan implemented in the late 1960s brought the study of seabed sediments into a new stage, especially in the study of the types and distribution of deep-sea sediments and diagenesis.
Since 1970s, the research on marine sediments has been more in-depth and comprehensive, and some new research directions have been derived. For example, the study of sedimentary kinetics has been paid attention to by many countries. Its main purpose is to solve the transport process of clastic materials under different hydrodynamic conditions, as well as the deposition and erosion mechanism of the seabed. It emphasizes on-site observation, and the parameters such as sediment concentration, bottom velocity and flow direction can be measured simultaneously by using the dynamic sphere of marine sedimentation, which makes the research develop from static stage to dynamic direction.
China conducted a large-scale marine survey in the late 1950s, which was the beginning of marine sediment research in China. Since 1960s, the sedimentary types, material composition, sedimentary rate, shelf sedimentary model and sedimentary development history of Bohai Sea, Yellow Sea, East China Sea and South China Sea have been deeply studied. Great progress has also been made in the study of the transport and dynamic process of coastal and seabed sediments, and the investigation and research of deep-sea pelagic sediments have also been carried out.