Research Seminar: Arriola

Jill Arriola presents her research on “Carbon Burial and Sediment Accretion in Salt Marshes: Local and Regional Perspectives”

Salt marshes are tidal wetlands which provide numerous benefits and services to coastal inhabitants, including humans, but are threatened by anthropogenic activities and sea-level rise.  One of the services provided by salt marshes is carbon storage in the form of buried organic material.  The rate of carbon burial relies on several factors including sediment deposition and above and below ground biomass production.  Alterations in these primary factors create variability in carbon storage on local and regional scales.  In this talk I present results from a carbon burial study done along a tidal creek in a pristine salt marsh within the big bend of Florida, where I find two scenarios of carbon burial and sediment accretion between the mouth and headwaters of the creek; these scenarios have implications for a future with higher sea-level rise.  I also show preliminary data from a regional variability survey of salt marshes along the Gulf of Mexico, from Corpus Christie, TX to Apalachicola, FL, as well as one site near St. Augustine, FL on the Atlantic coast.  Future directions for this research are to apply high resolution field and laboratory experiments in coastal NC to investigate changes in the quantity and quality of the C buried with respect to sea-level rise.