Plant communities as indicators of salt marsh hydrology A study at Goose Fare Brook, Saco, Maine
- Univ. of Maine, Orono, ME (United States). Dept. of Geological Sciences
Salt marsh stratigraphy often relies on vegetation fragment distribution as an indicator of paleo-sea level. This study is attempting to validate the use of Spartina alterniflora and Spartina patens at Goose Fare Brook in Saco, Maine as paleo-sea level indicators. Plant zones were mapped and each zone boundary was surveyed to describe the relationship between sea level and plant species zonation. Data showing the contact elevations between S. patens and S. alterniflora were examined, and contacts from different environments in the marsh were compared. Differences in contact elevations ranged from only a few centimeters to more than eighty centimeters. Three series of groundwater monitoring wells were installed along transects. Within a single transect, one well was placed in the creek bottom, measuring the free water surface, and one was placed at each of several plant zone boundaries. Strip chart recordings from one series of monitoring wells show the flood dominated patterns of tidally influenced groundwater fluctuations in the wells. Root depths of 100 plugs each of S. alterniflora and S. patens were also measured. A comparison of these measurements and those from monitoring wells will assist in the determination of the average length of submergence time for each species. Preliminary findings suggest that sea level is not the only force affecting the modern zonation of these two indicator plants in Goose Fare Brook.
- OSTI ID:
- 5505574
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-9303211-; CODEN: GAAPBC
- Journal Information:
- Geological Society of America, Abstracts with Programs; (United States), Vol. 25:2; Conference: 28. annual Geological Society of America (GSA) Northeastern Section meeting, Burlington, VT (United States), 22-24 Mar 1993; ISSN 0016-7592
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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