The painstakingly slow recovery of an Oregon marsh raises new worries about how delicate these ecosystems can be.
On January 26, 1700, deep below the northeast Pacific, two pieces of Earth’s crust abruptly gave way, ending a centuries-long deadlock. The massive earthquake sent a wall of water rushing inland. By the time the shaking stopped and the water settled, the coastline had been transformed. In some places, the land had plummeted by more than a meter, while the flood of sediment turned coastal marshes into mudflats.
“It’s probably pretty wild, right? Like, very chaotic,” says Erin Peck, a salt marsh geomorphologist who conducted the work while at the University of Delaware.
Rethinking the Resilience of Salt Marshes | Hakai Magazine
On January 26, 1700, deep below the northeast Pacific, two pieces of Earth’s crust abruptly gave way, ending a centuries-long deadlock. The massive earthquake sent a wall of water rushing inland. By the time the shaking stopped and the water settled, the coastline had been transformed. In some places, the land had plummeted by more than a meter, while the flood of sediment turned coastal marshes into mudflats.
“It’s probably pretty wild, right? Like, very chaotic,” says Erin Peck, a salt marsh geomorphologist who conducted the work while at the University of Delaware.
Rethinking the Resilience of Salt Marshes | Hakai Magazine