Abstract
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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Acknowledgements
The authors thank the editors of Estuaries and Coasts as well as two anonymous reviewers for comments that improved this manuscript. The authors thank the Kendall Foundation, the National Science GK-12 Teaching Fellowship Program, the Maine Sea Grant Program, and the University of Maine Graduate Student Government for funding this work. We also thank the Wells National Estuarine Research Reserve, the Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge, and the Maine Geological Survey for access to the study site and aerial photographs. Thank you to J. Albright, J. Bowdoin, L. Brothers, K. Jones, and K. Lee for help in the field.
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Wilson, K.R., Kelley, J.T., Croitoru, A. et al. Stratigraphic and Ecophysical Characterizations of Salt Pools: Dynamic Landforms of the Webhannet Salt Marsh, Wells, ME, USA. Estuaries and Coasts 32, 855–870 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12237-009-9203-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12237-009-9203-7