Merrymeeting Bay / Kennebec Estuary Research Program (Bowdoin)

Environmental History through Core Analysis

Muddy intertidal flats and marshes within Merrymeeting Bay have accumulated sediment more-or-less continuously for several thousand years, providing a means to reconstruct environmental change.

We have retrieved and analyzed sediment cores from multiple locations within the bay and the lower Kennebec estuary.

Cores are extruded in the lab, sampled for radiometric dating, and analyzed for indicators of pollution and ecological change.

Core results:

• chronology
• diatoms
• pollen
• metals
• fly-ash particles
• carbon & nitrogen