Maritime forest

Figure 12. Salt marsh has also invaded this maritime forest. (Photograph by the author. More about the photograph)

Pine forests are not the only type of forest that salt marshes can invade during periods of rising sea level. Figure 12 shows a salt marsh in an area between beach ridges on Bogue Banks extending laterally into a maritime forest of live oaks and other hardwoods. Note the skeletal branches of fallen oaks lying along both sides of the marsh. The pace of salt marsh invasion in this setting is much slower than in the pine flatwoods shown in Figure 10 because the slope of the beach ridge is much steeper than the surface of the Down East peninsula. As a result, a small change in sea level affects only a narrow area on the side of the ridge rather than the wide area affected by the same size rise over the flatlands of the peninsula.

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