Paleoecological Study of Coastal Marsh in the Chenier Plain, Louisiana PDF Download

Author: Kathryn E. L. Smith
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 203

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Book Description
Combined paleoecological and geochronological analyses can provide a critical tool for understanding coastal marsh development and ecological response to perturbations, such as sea-level rise and tropical storms, particularly in regions like coastal Louisiana, where high rates of wetland loss threaten an ecologically and economically important ecosystem. Analysis of sediment cores from Rockefeller Wildlife Refuge identify sediment deposition from storm surge and show that diatom assemblage of hurricane sediments are dissimilar from non-storm sediments and have the potential for examining historical frequency of storms. Chronology and vertical accretion rates calculated from 210Pb radioisotope using the constant flux : constant sedimentation method provided the best match to an independent tracer (137Cs), and indicate that marsh rates of vertical accretion are generally lower than regional estimates of mean sea-level rise, despite recent hurricane deposition. Contemporary diatom samples from 46 sites located throughout the Chenier plain were examined to test the relationship between diatom assemblage and environmental parameters.