Dying salt marshes puzzle scientists

[Kadie]

I just posted about the Aspen trees dying, then I found this.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=1891366&mesg_id=1891366


Dying salt marshes puzzle scientists
By RAY HENRY, Associated Press Writer
10 minutes ago



WELLFLEET, Mass. - Pockmarked muck blots this formerly lush marsh on Cape Cod, and a creek carves off eroded chunks along its edges. Dead plant roots jut from barren mud once covered with wavy mats of marsh hay.

New England scientists began noticing dead patches like this one near Lieutenant Island four years ago and call it sudden wetland dieback. Ecologists warn that saltwater marshes from Maine to Connecticut are suddenly and inexplicably dying, leaving behind land resembling honeycombs, Swiss cheese or an eroded desert landscape.

Few scientists can explain it or recommend what to do. Even skeptics concede something unusual is happening.

"It's something that people who have spent their entire careers working in salt marshes have never seen before," said Stephen Smith, a plant ecologist who works in Cape Cod for the National Park Service. "There's no precedent for it."

Salt marshes are wetlands dominated by plant life sheltered from surf and capable of living where coastal waters fluctuate. Losing a marsh means eliminating a habitat for hundreds of fish, birds, shellfish and mammals and destroying a buffer capable of weakening a hurricane's destructive surge.

more...
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060812/ap_on_sc/dead_marshes_2

[bullimiami]

1. just today ive read stories of the marshes dying, huge dead zone off

oregon/wash coast in the pacific and the aspens dying off. all mysteries to scientists.

crap!

[nam78_two]

2. kick/nt

[Bonobo]

3. I was just in Wellfleet one week ago and was admiring the salt marshes!

I noticed no blight, so it is very localized.

[Lindacooks]

4. I'd bet it's some sort of pollution.

n/t

[alfredo]

6. Could be a change in water temprature, salinity, a die off

of an essential organism, but polution would be the first suspect. If it is happening on the west coast too, it could be climate changes.

[theophilus]

5. Ending the use of fossil fuels and stopping polution would be a good

start. How sad.

[Kadie]

7. .

morning :kick: