{"id":187926,"date":"2025-01-08T12:37:36","date_gmt":"2025-01-08T17:37:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/gso\/?p=187926"},"modified":"2025-01-08T15:00:25","modified_gmt":"2025-01-08T20:00:25","slug":"new-faculty-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/gso\/publications\/aboard-gso\/new-faculty-4\/","title":{"rendered":"New Faculty"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Assistant Professor Erin Peck<\/h2>\n\n\n
\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Like many things in life, Erin Peck\u2019s decision to become a coastal geomorphologist was a bit of an accident.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI started college pre-med, but it only lasted about a week,\u201d she says. \u201cWhen I decided to transfer out of calculus, the only open class was geology. It immediately spoke to me. I\u2019ve always loved water and mud.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After completing her degree in environmental science, she earned her master\u2019s 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\u2026.and, of course, mud. This fall, she began as an assistant professor of geological oceanography in the Graduate School of Oceanography.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think the one person who wasn\u2019t surprised by my career path is my father,\u201d she says. \u201cApparently, my first word was \u2018dirt.\u2019 And my second was \u2018bird.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSalt marshes are important culturally, economically, and ecologically,\u201d she says, gazing across the full-moon-flooded marshes of the Narrow River in Narragansett, R.I. \u201cThey are habitats and nurseries for fish, shellfish, and birds. They provide flood protection and filter nutrients.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSalt marshes also pull carbon out of the atmosphere and create a massive, subterranean biomass of roots and rhizomes,\u201d says Peck.<\/p>\n\n\n

\u201cTidal wetlands comprise only 0.2% of Earth\u2019s ocean area. Yet they account for about 50% of organic carbon buried in marine sediments.\u201d<\/blockquote><\/div><\/section>\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTidal wetlands comprise only 0.2% of Earth\u2019s ocean area. Yet they account for about 50% of organic carbon buried in marine sediments,\u201d says Peck.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2019s salt marshes have vanished.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Peck\u2019s research focuses on how coastal wetlands evolve naturally, how they respond to stresses such as deforestation, seismic flooding, and sea-level rise\u2014and 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.\u2002<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014Bill Ibelle<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Assistant Professor Erin Peck Like many things in life, Erin Peck\u2019s decision to become a coastal geomorphologist was a bit of an accident. \u201cI started college pre-med, but it only lasted about a week,\u201d she says. \u201cWhen I decided to transfer out of calculus, the only open class was geology. It immediately spoke to me. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2120,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[7,1987],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-187926","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aboard-gso","category-publications"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/gso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187926","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/gso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/gso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/gso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2120"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/gso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=187926"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/gso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187926\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":188079,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/gso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187926\/revisions\/188079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/gso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=187926"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/gso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=187926"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/gso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=187926"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}