Push Comes to Shove

WHOI guest student Jessie Pearl (left) and Northeastern co-op student Bethany Bowen worked a Russian peat borer into the mud Quamquissett Marsh in Woods Hole this summer. They were collecting peat cores to determine when Atlantic white cedar first colonized the area, and when the ancient swamp died out. By understanding the natural history of the region, Pearl and WHOI’s Coastal Systems Group may be able to piece together which large storm events contributed to drowning the swamp thousands of years ago. (Photo courtesy of Jessie Pearl, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)