Brackish
Water with more salinity than freshwater but less than seawater; a gradient, not a fixed category.
MARSH GLOSSARY
The language of the tide.
A working vocabulary for understanding salt marsh structure, function, and change.
Porewater
The water held between sediment grains. Its oxygen, salt, and nutrient chemistry can differ sharply from surface water.
Redox layer
A visible or chemical boundary where oxygen availability changes, often marked by color or smell in a marsh core.
Blue carbon
Carbon captured and stored by coastal ecosystems such as mangroves, seagrasses, and tidal marshes.
Spring tide
A larger-than-average tidal range that occurs near new and full moons; it has nothing to do with the season.
Neap tide
A smaller tidal range occurring near the first and third quarter moons.