Rachel Carson Salt Pond Panorama

Rachel Carson's Silent Spring (1962), which exposed the impact of pesticides on the natural world, marks the onset of public consciousness of the environmental crisis. At the time, Carson was already well known to the public as a marine biologist and noted author of Under the Sea Wind (1941), The Sea Around Us (1951) and The Edge of the Sea (1955). Some of her research was done on the shore of Maine's Muscongus Bay, at a tide pool near the southeastern tip of the Pemaquid Peninsula. The Rachel Carson Salt Pond Preserve, where the panorama below was taken, was set aside by the Nature Conservancy in 1966.

As you view the panorama, examine the environmental conditions that allow the tides to flush and replenish the water and life within the salt pond. Use the linked quotations to deepen your understanding of salt pond ecology and Rachel Carson's work.

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Credits: Photographs by Carolyn Merchant; panorama assembly and web page by Rob Weinberg.