The move will anger Beijing which claims most of the South China Sea.
Other countries in South East Asia have competing claims for the Spratly Islands, Paracel Islands and Scarborough Shoal, which are thought to have resource-rich waters around them.
But the reefs, which were submerged, were turned into islands by China after a massive dredging project in 2014.
International maritime law allows countries to claim ownership of the 12-nautical mile area surrounding natural islands but does not allow nations to claim ownership of submerged features that have been raised by human intervention.
It is unclear whether Chinese officials were made aware of the US plans.
But a spokesman for the Chinese embassy in Washington said that freedom of navigation "should not be used as excuse to flex muscle and undermine other countries' sovereignty and security".
The ship would probably be accompanied by a US Navy P-8A surveillance plane and a P-3 surveillance plane, according to the unnamed official, speaking to US media.
Additional patrols could follow in the coming weeks, the official added.
Washington believes Beijing is constructing military facilities, designed to reinforce its disputed claim to most of the region - a major shipping zone.
China says its land reclamation and construction work in the South China Sea is legal.
More than 200 people have died, mostly in Pakistan, after a magnitude-7.5 earthquake hit north-eastern Afghanistan.
Tremors from the quake were also felt in northern India and Tajikistan.
At least 12 of the victims were Afghan schoolgirls killed in a crush as they tried to get out of their building.
The earthquake was centred in the mountainous Hindu Kush region, 76km (45 miles) south of Faizabad, the US Geological Survey reported.
The death toll is set to rise as the most severely affected areas are very remote and communications have been cut off.
Image copyrightEPAImage captionThis girl was among those being treated at a hospital in Peshawar, in PakistanImage copyrightAFPImage captionThe shoes of Afghan girls involved in a deadly stampede at their school in Takhar Province were left outside their building
In Pakistan, authorities said at least 154 people were known to have died in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province alone, and more than 1,000 were injured.
Pakistan's Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is cutting short a visit abroad and returning home.
Sunnatullah Timour, a spokesman for the governor of the Afghan province of Takhar, told the BBC that as well as the fatalities at the girls' school, another 25 students were injured in the stampede.
Deaths and injuries have also been reported in the Afghan provinces of Nangarhar, Badakhshan and Kunar, with at least 52 killed in total.
Afghanistan's Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah tweeted that the government had asked aid agencies to work with it to help those in need.
Image copyrightReutersImage captionInjured people were brought to a hospital in Jalalabad, AfghanistanImage copyrightEPAImage captionThese buildings in Afghanistan's Badakshan province, near the epicentre, were damaged
However as the earthquake originated more than 200km (125 miles) below the earth's surface, the damage is less than that which a similarly powerful but shallow tremor might cause.
In the city of Karimabad, in Pakistan's Gilgit-Baltistan, a witness who gave his name as Anas told the BBC that the quake had sent a landslide crashing into the Hunza river.
"At first it was as if someone was shaking us. There were about 20 of us and we just held on to each other," he said.
"Right after that we saw a major landslide. Some people say it was a glacier that came down, some people say it was a hill. It fell right in front of our eyes."
Pakistan Geological Survey head Imran Khan told the BBC there were reports of landslides disrupting the Karakoram highway between Gilgit and Baltistan. However, he said it was too early to say if any glaciers were destabilised by the quake.
Image copyrightAFPImage captionThe earthquake triggered a landslide in Pakistan's northern Hunza valley
Analysis by Jonathan Webb, science reporter
Even at its revised magnitude of 7.5, this was a powerful tremor. Around the world only about 20 quakes each year, on average, measure greater than 7.0.
But its focus was deep - much further below the surface than the 7.8 quake which brought widespread destruction to eastern Nepal in April. That event was only 8km deep and was followed in early May by an aftershock with magnitude 7.3.
Similarly, the devastating 2005 Kashmir earthquake was magnitude 7.6 and just 26km deep. Today's quake, at a depth of more than 200km, appears to have caused widespread but less severe ground shaking.
People in the Indian capital Delhi ran into the streets after the tremor struck, and schools and offices were evacuated. The Delhi metro was also briefly halted.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted that he had ordered an urgent assessment of any damage.
"We stand ready for assistance where required, including Afghanistan and Pakistan," he said.
Catherine Bhatti, from Durham in the UK, was visiting relatives in Sarghoda, Pakistan, when the quake struck.
"It came out of the blue, everything started to move slightly then it became stronger. We made our way downstairs and gathered outside on the lawn," she told the BBC.
"My in-laws, who have lived here all their lives, say they have never experienced anything like this before."
Image copyrightAPImage captionThis home in Peshawar was destroyed by the earthquakeImage copyrightBBC AfghanImage captionPictures from Ghazni, south-west of Kabul, showed damage to buildingsImage copyrightAPImage captionThese patients were evacuated from their hospital in Jammu, India after the quake was felt
Buildings in the Tajik capital Dushanbe were damaged by the tremors.
Local media report that a staircase at a school in Tajikistan's Yavan district collapsed, injuring 14 children.
There are also reports of injuries in a stampede at Khorog state university in Tajikistan, as a building was evacuated.
The region has a history of powerful earthquakes caused by the northward collision of India with Eurasia. The two plates are moving towards each other at a rate of 4-5cm per year.
In 2005, a magnitude 7.6 quake in Pakistan-administered Kashmir left more than 75,000 people dead.
In April this year, Nepal suffered its worst earthquake on record with 9,000 people killed and about 900,000 homes damaged or destroyed.
Media captionSouth African President Jacob Zuma: There will be "zero increase" in university fees
South African President Jacob Zuma has ruled out any increases in university tuition fees for next year after more than a week of protests by students.
They have been the biggest student protests to hit the country since apartheid ended in 1994.
The students had rejected an earlier government offer to cap increases at 6%, down from the 10% to 12% proposed by the management of universities.Before he spoke in a TV address, police had been using stun grenades and water cannon to stop a group of students breaking into the Union Buildings, the seat of government in Pretoria.
Media captionThere have been chaotic scenes at the Union Buildings, the seat of government
The demonstrations have closed some of the country's top universities.
"We agreed that there will be a zero increase of university fees in 2016," Mr Zuma said after meeting university officials and student representatives.
"In the long term, there is a package of issues that was raised at the meeting that needs to be followed up - these include free education, institutional autonomy [and] racism."
Analysis: Milton Nkosi, BBC News, Pretoria
Image copyrightAP
President Zuma's agreement to freeze all university increases to meet the demands of the #FeesMustFall campaign will be welcomed by those who have been at the forefront of this student movement, unprecedented since the end of apartheid.
But the decision could have been taken much earlier. The protests have been going on for a little over a week. If it had been, we could have avoided the stun grenades and tear gas, which were fired at student protesters here at the Union Buildings.
The protests have cut across South Africa's deep political divide: Black and white, rich and poor stood side by side. No political parties were involved. This is taking the country in a new direction of organic, popular protest, likely to play into next year's local government elections.
The hashtag #FeesHaveFallen is now trending across the country, but I doubt this will be the end of the problems facing South Africa's students.
There were chaotic scenes at the Union Buildings following the president's speech, with some students angry that Mr Zuma had chosen to make the address on national TV, rather than come out to speak to them directly.
Pictures on social media showed police cars that had been damaged and one which was overturned.
Image copyrightAPImage captionLocal media reported that police fired rubber bullets to disperse crowds after the announcementImage copyrightAFPImage captionA minority among the protesters were causing damage and throwing missiles at the police
It is unclear how the freeze on South African university fees will be funded, Vice Chancellor of the University of Cape Town, Max Price, told the BBC after attending meeting with the president.
The government said it did not know how much they would pay or where the money would come from, he added.
Local media reported that police fired rubber bullets to drive protesters away from the grounds around the president's office.
During the protests, universities said they needed to increase fees to maintain standards, a they had been hit by a fall by in government subsidies.
Correspondents say the protests have shown the growing disillusionment with the governing African National Congress (ANC), which took power after minority rule ended in 1994, over high levels of poverty, unemployment and corruption in government.
Image copyrightReutersImage captionStudents from across the country crammed onto buses and trains to travel to Pretoria
Many black students say they come from poor families, and the fee increases would rob them of the opportunity to continue studying.
Financially better-off white students have also joined in, mainly to show solidarity with the black students.
Mr Zuma announcedthe move as students gathered by his office in the capital.
At least 43 people, most of them pensioners on a day trip, have been killed in a head-on collision between a bus and a truck in south-west France.
The crash happened on a country road near Puisseguin in the Gironde wine region, east of Bordeaux. Both vehicles then caught fire.
France's president promised a full investigation into what he called an "immense tragedy".
It is the worst French road disaster since 1982, when 52 people died.
The bus collided with the timber truck at 07:30 local time (05:30 GMT), at what local residents described as a notoriously dangerous bend in the road.Both vehicles quickly caught fire. Local people reported seeing a plume of smoke from several kilometres away.
Video on French television showed two blackened vehicles, with the bus facing the wood-transporter's trailer, its cab skewed to one side.
Prime Minister Manuel Valls, speaking from the scene, said the victims had died "in atrocious conditions".
"It's a terrible shock for France," he added.
Eight people survived, four of whom were in a serious condition.
Image copyrightGetty ImagesImage captionPrime Minister Manuel Valls (centre) at the scene of the crash said it had left France in shockImage copyrightEPAImage captionEmergency services arrived on the scene by air...Image copyrightEPAImage caption... and by road
Local MP Gilles Savary told RTL radio (in French) that one of the injured was a motorist who had stopped at the scene and tried to rescue people.
Regional officials said the bus driver had survived the crash but the lorry driver was among the fatalities.
The body of the lorry driver's three-year-old son was also found in the cabin of his vehicle.
Authorities have been quoted as saying that it could take up to three days to remove the dead from the bus.
Day trip
The exact cause of the crash is unclear, but Puisseguin Mayor Xavier Sublett said the lorry driver had lost control leaving him "stranded in the middle of the road". The bus driver tried to avoid the lorry but was in collision with it, he added.
Other reports said the bus driver then managed to open the doors and get some passengers off the bus.
Most of those on board were members of an elderly people's association from the small town of Petit-Palais-et-Cornemps, which has a population of just 700, along with others from neighbouring communities.
They were at the start of their journey, and were heading south for a day trip into the Landes region.
Town councillor Jeremiah Bessard told the iTele channel that its residents had been hit hard by the news: "We all knew someone." The flags in Puisseguin have been lowered to half mast.
