R-06-02 Are Maine's marshes drowning? Determining the life cycle of salt marsh pannes - Maine Sea Grant

UMaine Alert

Posted: April 19, 2024 - 1:32 PM

At approximately 9:24 a.m. on Friday, April 19, a University of Maine graduate student was struck by a university vehicle on Long Road at the University of Maine campus in Orono. The student reports that they are at a local hospital with minor injuries.

Emergency services, including the Orono Fire Department, University Volunteer Ambulance Corps, University of Maine Police Department, Orono Police Department and Penobscot County Sheriff’s Office responded to the scene.

The university vehicle involved in the incident was a Chevrolet Express van. It was being operated by a university employee.

Counseling services and support are available for students, faculty or staff who may have been affected. The Counseling Center can be reached at 207-581-1392 and the Dean of Students Office can be reached at 207-581-1406.

The scene has been cleared and Long Road is now accessible. An investigation is being conducted by the University of Maine Police Department with assistance from the Penobscot County Sheriff’s Office Crash Reconstruction Unit. Any witnesses to the incident are encouraged to contact Lt. Noel Santiago at noel.santiago@maine.edu.

R-06-02 Are Maine’s marshes drowning? Determining the life cycle of salt marsh pannes

November 8, 2018

Daniel Belknap
Department of Earth Sciences
University of Maine
Orono , ME 04469
207.581.2159
Email Dan Belknap

“We now have much more solid evidence that the marsh surfaces are not drowning in place, rather they are a highly dynamic setting in long-term equilibrium with rising sea level.” D. Belknap

Salt marshes provide protected nursery sites for fish, crustaceans, and other invertebrates, as well as open water and food for birds. Concerned that an observed increase in pannes (shallow depressions) and pools on marshes indicates that the marshes are drowning from the inside out, as sediment accumulation fails to keep up with sea-level rise, researcher Dan Belknap and graduate student Kristin Wilson studied historic aerial photographs, maps, and sediment cores of five marshes along the Maine coast to determine how marshes change over time. They discovered that salt marsh surfaces are dynamic, with pools forming, changing size and shape, draining and re-colonizing on decadal to centennial time frames. The salt marshes they studied are able to accumulate at rates greater than six mm/year, suggesting that marshes will survive under even moderately high projections of future sea-level rise.

2-year project, 2006-2008
Total: $163,886

Related publications

Wilson, K.R., J.T. Kelley, A. Croitoru, M. Dionne, D.F. Belknap, and R. Steneck. 2009. Stratigraphic and ecophysical characterizations of salt pools: dynamic landforms of the Webhannet salt marsh, Wells, ME, USA. Estuaries and Coasts 32:855-870.

Wilson, K.R., J.T. Kelley, B.R. Tanner, and D.F. Belknap. 2010. Probing the origins and stratigraphic signature of salt pools from north-temperate marshes in Maine, USA. Journal of Coastal Research 26:1007-1026.