Assistant Professor Erin Peck
Like many things in life, Erin Peck’s decision to become a coastal geomorphologist was a bit of an accident.
“I started college pre-med, but it only lasted about a week,” she says. “When I decided to transfer out of calculus, the only open class was geology. It immediately spoke to me. I’ve always loved water and mud.”
After completing her degree in environmental science, she earned her master’s degree and Ph.D. from Oregon State University, where she specialized in the evolution of salt marshes, combining her lifelong passion for oceans, research, geology, teaching….and, of course, mud. This fall, she began as an assistant professor of geological oceanography in the Graduate School of Oceanography.
“I think the one person who wasn’t surprised by my career path is my father,” she says. “Apparently, my first word was ‘dirt.’ And my second was ‘bird.’”
“Salt marshes are important culturally, economically, and ecologically,” she says, gazing across the full-moon-flooded marshes of the Narrow River in Narragansett, R.I. “They are habitats and nurseries for fish, shellfish, and birds. They provide flood protection and filter nutrients.”
For example, salt marshes trap nitrogen, which depletes the oxygen in bays and estuaries, killing fish and shellfish. Fertilizer used on farms and lawns contains large quantities of nitrogen. When it leeches into rivers and streams during heavy rainfalls, it wreaks havoc on marine life.
“Salt marshes also pull carbon out of the atmosphere and create a massive, subterranean biomass of roots and rhizomes,” says Peck.
“Tidal wetlands comprise only 0.2% of Earth’s ocean area. Yet they account for about 50% of organic carbon buried in marine sediments.”
As marshes grow vertically to keep up with sea level rise, this biomass is buried quickly and pushed deep beneath the surface which, in turn, deprives the biomass of oxygen. Without oxygen, it decomposes slowly, trapping the carbon well below ground.
“Tidal wetlands comprise only 0.2% of Earth’s ocean area. Yet they account for about 50% of organic carbon buried in marine sediments,” says Peck.
Conversely, when wetlands are filled or drained, they release carbon quickly, which can accelerate climate change. In the last 200 years, 50% of Rhode Island’s salt marshes have vanished.
Peck’s research focuses on how coastal wetlands evolve naturally, how they respond to stresses such as deforestation, seismic flooding, and sea-level rise—and how long they take to regenerate when damaged. She drives PVC pipes deep into the marsh to take core samples dating back 300 years. By analyzing these samples she can determine how the marsh has responded to natural and human-made changes.
For example, she studied the impact of a tsunami in the 1700s that flooded the Oregon salt marshes, and the clear-cut logging boom that caused massive sediment run off in the years between World War II and the early 1970s.
Peck plans to co-teach a spring semester course on coastal New England along with assistant professor Kris Lewis. She is also developing a new course on the changing landscape of academic publishing.
—Bill Ibelle