MS Thesis Defense: Charlie Deaton

The Department of Marine Sciences and The Institute of Marine Sciences (IMS) is proud to present the M.S. Thesis Defense of Charlie Deaton. The main location of this event will be in room 222 at IMS in Morehead City, NC. The defense will be simultaneously streamed live to room 3204 on the 3rd floor of Murray Hall on UNC campus in Chapel Hill, NC. This event will be held on Monday, March 26th at 10:00 AM.

Title: Land use change and tidal creek sedimentation in coastal watersheds of North Carolina

Abstract: Terrestrial landscape alterations eventually cause changes along the coast, where rivers deliver sediments to estuaries and oceans. In contrast to major rivers, tidal creeks drain little land area, but while their watersheds are small, they are numerous and drain much of the eastern United States’ coastal-estuarine land area. Coastal watersheds are frequently hotspots of development, and in North Carolina, residents have expressed concerns about creeks infilling, becoming unnavigable for boaters and uninhabitable for organisms. To understand the relationship between land-use change and creek infilling, sedimentation rates calculated from ²¹⁰Pb in cores from twelve tidal creeks across North Carolina were compared to changes in watershed land use 1959-2010. Results indicate land use change, and particularly development, has the potential to drive infilling of tidal creeks, though hydrologic conditions impose some limits and are responsible for the partitioning of increased sediment loads between creekbed and intertidal deposition and export to larger estuaries.