Dead spruce trees in the muskeg area at the south end of Zeacliff Pond, September 2008

This looks pretty dismal with the grey sky and the dead trees. It's an indication of the late stage of eutrophication of Zealand Pond. I just looked up 'eutrophy' in the dictionary and it defines it as "the state of being well nourished, state of being over-rich in organic and mineral nutrients which promote plant life over animal life." That sounds right but I am using it to denote a phase in the life and death of a pond using my definition of a pond from the photo above. At any rate in the past 50 years, by comparing the two photos above these spruce trees have grown and died. I'm going to guess and say they died 30 years ago, or so, because of too much water. In other words they may have drowned.