Century-scale resilience of stored seagrass blue carbon in coastal Virginia

Blue carbon sequestration in coastal ecosystems is only relevant to climate change mitigation and carbon offset crediting if the carbon is taken out of circulation for at least a century. Here, we report data from sediment cores, up to 2.2 m deep, collected below modern Zostera marina seagrass meadows in Mid-Atlantic lagoons in Virginia, USA. Integrated data on Pb-210 and C-14 dating, sediment organic matter and carbon content, and stable isotopic and DNA analysis of sediment samples revealed that buried seagrass organic carbon persisted for centuries.