level because with the weight that you might get it would be 

 possible that you could, 1 imagine, get some compression of 

 your soils and you would then lower the level of that marsh. 

 After you have lowered the level of that marsh and water in- 

 undation continues, one might anticipate it would go back to 

 an earlier stage of salt marsh vegetation. I don't think you 

 woiild because the hurricane itself would not have removed the 

 original cover of vegetation and therefore any new plants com- 

 ing in would have difficulty in invading a mat that was already 

 there. 



Now this raises a rather different question - Dr. van Straaten 

 may have some comment to make - because in the War certain 

 areas in Holland were flooded deliberately. Now when that 

 happens of course the flooding took place for some days. What 

 happened was the sea water went inland for a length of time. 

 In other words the former vegetation became killed because of 

 the influx of the salt. Then you have a lag period when that 

 salt must be removed before the mesophyllic vegetation will 

 come back again. 



1 would like to ask Dr. Morgan whether at the backward edge 

 of the flooded area where presumably the salt water lay for a 

 considerable time, whether the vegetation was killed, and if 

 so whether there was any indication of the distinct vegetation 

 coming back or whether there was, as normally occurs in 

 Europe, an intervening stage when you do get parasitic plants 

 coming in and occupying the ground temporarily for a short 

 period of time. 



Morgan: I believe there are two questions. The first pertaining to the 



lowering of the level in the marshes as a result of the weight. 

 I might simply comment there that you do not know our LiOuis- 

 iana marshes. All you have to do is walk on them to compress 

 them, so I am sure that there is plenty of compression as a 

 result of the weight, but it would not be measurable. Secondly, 

 the plant changes will be severe probably because there is still 

 impounded salt water back in what was formerly a brackish 

 fresh water marsh, and there will be a gradual change of that. 

 We hope that Dr. Chamberlain is going to work with us next 

 summer on the area to try to decipher some of these plant 

 changes that may have occurred. Dr. Chamberlain worked in 

 this area before the storm. We hope he can pinpoint the changes 

 that are occurring. Unfortunately, as Dr. Russell said, this 

 a rea is full of oil below the surface and oil is more valuable 

 than science in this sort of discussion, so consequently the 

 marsh is changing so rapidly from canals and so forth, that I 

 am afraid plant changes can't keep up with man made changes, 

 no matter how hard they try. 



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