Article: Intensive Logging Created New England's Rich Wetlands

Few people now adays think of loggers as being good and helping the environment, however, in New England it is the loggers from the 18th and 19th century that are to thank for New England's rich wetlands.  Although logging destroyed the landscape, it helped out the coastline tremendously.  The wetlands that the logging created buffer the coastline from storms, keep the shore safe from pollutants, and shelter marine organisms.  There are some people who wish to turn this area back into its "natural" state from before the European settlers came, however, this would mean losing a lot of the marshland, and its benefits.  Matthew Kirwan of the US Geological Survey in Laurel, Maryland wanted to find out how old the marsh in the Plum Island  in Massachusettes is.  He did this by dating fossil plant rhizomes and found that the ones on the edge dated back to about 4000 years and the ones in the centre went back just some 200 years.  This probably means that this area was half marsh and half open-water bay.  According to historic records, the time that the half marsh half open-water shifted to full marsh, was at a time when there was an increase in logging.