Guest Blogger Grace Neuman: From mossy bogs to forgotten fields, the landscape of Northeastern Ohio holds buried stories. My Independent study, examines how two centuries of post-settlement human activity have altered the region’s ecosystems, and how we can still see those imprints today.
I investigated various ecological and historical data sources, such as tree rings, sediment cores, soil textures, soil chemistry, and radiometric dating, to trace land use patterns and forest disturbance over time. These scientific methods helped uncover both natural and human-driven shifts in the region’s environmental conditions.
Me in the lab with sediment grain size analysis equipment (PARIO).
My work focused on Brown’s Lake Bog Preserve, located on Browns Road in Shreve, Ohio. This Nature Preserve harbors remnants of Ohio’s post-glacial ecosystems and is one of the last few acidic bog ecosystems remaining in Ohio. The LiDAR map above shows the location of the Bog (BB) and the lake (BL). This kettle lake is surrounded by kames.
Sediment core (left) and various measurements (right) provided by Erika Freimuth. The sediments here record the transition of the surrounding landscape from an organic-rich bog (black mud) to a brighter clay/silt blown into the bog when the land was cleared. This profound change took place about 1820 dated by Pb-210. The blue line on the left is magnetic susceptibility and tracks the increase in eroded soil to the basin whereas the red line (organics) decreases.
The gain size analysis of the sediment deposited in the basin closely after 1820 is composed of mostly clay and silt. This grain size is consistent with eroded soils from the surrounding farmed landscape.
The dating with Cesium-137 and Pb-210 by Dr. Josh Landis of Dartmouth College yielded interesting results. The disruption about 1950 in the graph above suggests erosion and and increase in mass accumulation of sediment likely linked to logging in the basin.
Within the Preserve is a white oak stand of trees growing on the kames. These trees were witness to the land use changes. The release in tree growth about 1820 is consistent with the inferred land use change, also not the bump in ring-widths about 1950 when the forest was again selectively logged.
One of the classic kames surrounding the bog. This work was supported by the National Science Foundation and the Copeland Fund of The College of Wooster. We thank The Nature Conservancy for management of the site and permission to core the lake. Thanks also to T.V. Lowell for procuring the core and N. Wiesenberg for his help in the lab.