La Tour du Valat

Institut de recherche pour la conservation des zones humides méditerranéennes

Titre :	Stratigraphic and Ecophysical Characterizations of Salt Pools: Dynamic Landforms of the Webhannet Salt Marsh, Wells, ME, USA
Auteurs :	Kristin R. Wilson, Auteur ; Joseph T. Kelley, Auteur ; Arie Croitoru, Auteur ; Michele Dionne, Auteur ; Daniel F. Belknap, Auteur ; Robert Steneck, Auteur
Type de document :	Article
Dans :	Estuaries and Coasts (32(5) SEP 2009)
Article en page(s) :	855-870
Résumé :	Salt pools are water-filled depressions common to north-temperate salt marshes. In Wells, ME, USA, cores reveal a unique salt pool signature consisting of water-saturated dark-gray mud often containing fragments of Ruppia maritima. Cores through pool sediment reenter salt marsh peat, not tidal flat sediment, demonstrating that most pools are of secondary origin. A principal component analysis of attribute data collected from 119 pools defines three distinct pool types: those with (1) surrounding high-marsh vegetation and thick heavily undercut banks (40% of the variance), (2) surrounding low-marsh vegetation and thicker slightly undercut banks (18% of the variance), and (3) surrounding low-marsh vegetation and less thick moderately undercut banks, containing R. maritima and a surficial drainage (15% of the variance). Cores and spatiotemporal analyses of aerial photographs between 1962 and 2003 reveal dramatic salt marsh surface dynamism suggesting that salt pools influence the geomorphological evolution of coastal marshes.

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